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FACTS IN A CLERGYMAN^ S LIFE ! 



REV. CHARLES B. TAYLER, M. A. 

AUTHOB- OF " LADY MARY," " MARK WILTON," " MARGARET," ETC. ETC. 




NEW-YORK : 

STANFORD AND SWORDS, 137, BROADWAY. 

1849. 






/. B. M'GOWN, PRINTER AND STEREOTTPER, 
No. 57 ANN-STREET. 



TO THE 

REV. HENRY RAIKES, M. A. 

CHANCELLOR OF THE DIOCESE OF CHESTER. 



My Dear Friend, 
There are few, I do not think there can be any, of 
those who are blessed with your friendship, that can 
prize it so truly as I do. I thank Grod with an espe- 
cial gratitude, for the ten years I passed in almost 
daily intercourse with you — for your counsel, for your 
affection, and above all, for the benefit of your consist- 
ent and admirable example. I cannot look back on 
that time without a heavy heart, because it is gone, 
and on earth that daily intercourse is over ; but the 
retrospect of those happy days cheers me during my 
present warfare in this corrupt world, in the midst of 
many difficulties and many short-comings ; for I have 
seen in you, what the grace of Grod has wrought in 
one naturally as weak and sinful as myself. 



11 



I pray, from my heart, that if it please God, you 
may be long spared to those — myself among the 
number — to whom the loss of you, when you are gone, 
can never be supplied ; and that being one in Christ 
now, we may all, whether absent from the body, or 
still in the body, be one in Christ with you, for ever. 

AVill you accept this volume as a slight token of 
the high respect, and the deep affection, of your 
grateful friend ? 

Charles B. Tayler. 



Otley Rectory^ 

Jan, 20, 1849. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGE. 

1. MINISTERIAL ORDINATION— THE OUTWARD CHANGE - 7 

It. MY FIRST CURACY 20 

III. THE WORD OF GOD .--.-- 29 

IV. THE PULPIT 39 

V. GEORGE MANLY 52 

VI. PENITENCE - 57 

VIL THE TEACHER TAUGHT 68 

Vm. MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES ... 76 

IX. THE YOUNG INFIDEL 106 

X. DESPERATE CHARACTERS - - - - - 115 

XL AMUSEMENT - 160 

XH. A MEMORIAL OF GOD'S MERCIFUL PROVIDENCE - - 176 

XIIL THE WRITTEN WORD 183 

XIV. TRANSFORMING GRACE 194 

XV. THE RACE-COURSE AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS - - 207 

XVI. HUMILITY S41 

XVII. THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, AND DISSENTERS - - 271 

CVIIL ROMANISM, AND THE WORD OF GOD. - - - 293 



FACTS IN A CLERGYMAN^ S LIFE. 



CHAPTER L 

MINISTERIAL ORDINATION — -THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 

A CHANGE as to surrounding circumstanees and a 
change of heart, these are too often confounded, as if 
the one were the necessary result, or accompaniment 
of the other. 

"We have a remarkable instance of a man, who 
was chosen to be an apostle, by our Blessed Lord, and 
placed in circumstances apparently the most favorable 
to the change of the man. He was for three years 
the highly-favored companion of the holy Jesus. He 
was the witness of the miracles of love and power, 
wrought by his Lord.— He saw in Jesus Christ, a 
perfect example of every grace, which could possibly 
adorn the human character ; he heard from the lips of 
Jesus the most admirable precepts of heavenly wisdom ; 
he was unable by the closest scrutiny to discover a 
flaw in the character of his divine Master. He beheld 
in Jesus a faultless temper, an unerring judgment, an 
exquisite propriety, and the loveliest consistency of 
life. 



THE OUTWARD CHANGE, 



For those three years this gracious Master was his 
daily companion, to teach him, to counsel him, to 
warn him, or to encourage him. Every glorious 
privilege w^hich man could enjoy, from the holy influ- 
ence of such circumstances, was his : but he had 
neither the heart nor the will to profit by them. 

In the case of this miserable man, there was the 
change of circumstances, but no change of heart ; 
there was the outward call, even from the highest 
authority ; but no inward call from the Holy Spirit. 

This is an extreme case, but though in one sense 
it stands alone, who is there about to enter upon the 
ministry of the gospel, that may not find much in the 
way of warning, much to make him thoughtful, self- 
searching, and earnest in prayer, from the considera- 
tion of the case of this false yet highly-favored disciple ? 
"VVe need all to beware of trusting to the influence of 
tlie circumstances of our position. "We have no reason 
to conclude that any of our Lord's disciples were con- 
verted by their intercourse with Him — either by the 
heavenly truths which flowed from His lips, or by the 
example of His perfect goodness. It was in the 
midst of outward circumstances the most discouraHnsr 
— their Master crucified and absent from them, — their 
dangers multiplied, — ^their desolation extreme, that it 
pleased God, according to the gracious word of their 
departed Lord, to send down the promised gift of the 
Holy G-host, by whom the marvellous transformation 
of the inner man was to be effected ; and then, and 
not till then, the inward call was given and responded 
to. It seems to me impossible for any one to give too 
serious a consideration to this subject. Who can suffi- 



THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 9 

cientiy realize its tremendous importance ? What 
indeed is a real and effectual call to the ministry of 
the gospel, but the receiving, as it were, the creden- 
tials of a divine appointment, to stand between the 
living G-od and a world dead in trespasses and sins, 
with the offer of life and immortality to come, from 
G-od, as a reconciled Father, to His lost and degraded 
children, through a new and living way, and that way 
no other than the blood of His own Son ? 

^^He is intended for the Church." Such is the 
careless reply to a casual question : — " His uncle has 
promised him the family-living," or — " We have in- 
terest in a certain quarter." And, who is thus spoken 
of ? — We see before us an idle trifling young man, 
who has already given sufficient proof, that he has 
neither energy nor application enough to succeed in 
any secular profession, and whose only distinct per- 
ception of so sacred a calling, whose only reason for 
a decided preference towards a clergyman's life, are, 
that he shall thus secure to himself a comfortable 
income, a pleasant parsonage, and an easy, idle life. 
We trace back his school and college course, and 
home pursuits ; but we can find no clear recognition 
of the duties of a Christian Pastor, no decided separa- 
tion from the ways of an ungodly world, no prepara- 
tion for the sacred office, which he expects to hold. 
He is almost, if not altogether, indifferent, as to what 
is required of him by way of preparation. But no, he 
is not quite indifferent, for, he cannot forget, that he 
must know enough G-reek to construe the New Tes- 
tament, and enough Latin to write a theme, on some 

theological subject, and cram just so much of the 
1# 



10 THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 

historical facts of the Bible as to be able to write 
down a portion of the answers required in the ordi- 
nation-papers of the Bishop's chaplain ; he owns 
however that all this is a bore — and after all, this is 
so imperfectly prepared for, that when in the examina- 
tion-room — were it not for a hint from some good- 
natured fellow-candidate, or more than a glance at his 
neighbor's written replies — which he manages here 
and there to copy — he would stand a great chance of 
being plucked. But he is not plucked. The circum- 
stances in which he finds himself placed, have induced 
an unwonted gravity in his demeanor — the probability 
of disgrace from not passing, has roused him to un- 
wonted exertion ; and he is gentlemanly and respectful 
in his manners. Neither the Bishop nor his chaplain 
possess the gift of discernment of spirits. They are 
not altogether satisfied with him, but they are not 
sufficiently dissatisfied to reject him. They speak to 
him with seriousness, and with kindness, on the awful 
responsibility of the calling, for which he has presented 
himself. He readily agrees to all they say to him, 
and makes the promises which they require from him, 
for though he is unable to conceive a definite idea of 
what they mean, he can see no possible reason to object 
to anything they say, and he will take good care that 
no impediment shall be presented on lii^ part to his 
ordination. And thus he hears with no little satisfac- 
tion, the summons, by which he is bidden to attend 
at the cathedral on the followinor mornins: — to read 
over, nay, to study carefully, and with prayer, the 
ordination service ; and to come in his gown. He 
enters the hallowed edifice at the appointed hour. 



Jm^ 



I'HE OUTWARD CHANGE. 11 

The flutter of his silken robes, as he passes through 
the spacious nave to the choir of the fine old cathedral, 
is responded to by a pleasant flutter within his own 
bosom. He hears and answers to the solemn ques- 
tions of the impressive service, with awe-struck emo- 
tion — an emotion which passes away, however, before 
the service is over. He is ordained a minister of the 
sanctuary. The last hour has witnessed the outward 
change of the young worldling into a clergyman. A 
few hours or days after, he has entered his parish ; 
and he finds, lying upon the table of his sitting-room, 

a letter directed to ^ The Rev. .' It is from his 

mother, or his sister, full of affection and pleasant 
congratulation. He is pleased with the writer, v/ith 
the letter, and with himself. He gives a glance round 
the room : it is well enough for a lodging : and he 
knows he must put up with a lodging and a curacy 
for the first year after his ordination. For a year he 
remains there ; certainly not wearing himself out, with 
the labors of his sacred calling : visiting the sick, 
when sent for ; but not knowing what to say in the 
sick chamber— -preaching occasionally good sermons, 
which are recogni2ed as copied, and approved by some 
of the more serious portion of the congregation, only 
they would have preferred the sermon as the author 
composed it ; and consider it any thing but improved 
by his alterations. He leads almost an idle life, — dull 
enough, because his heart is not in his work ; and 
because he cannot alto2fether avoid a feelingf of dis- 
satisfaction, from the consciousness that he is doing 
the least amount of work required of him. But the 
neighborhood is what is called good, that is, there is a 



12 THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 

sprinkling of common-place county families, who are 
not Avanting in their invitations to the young and 
gentlemanly curate, and whenever a dinner-party is 
proposed, he is invited, and whenever a dinner-party 
is assembled, he is to be found. Notwitstanding all 
that has been said of late years against such doings 
by the heads of our Church, he is to be seen occasion- 
ally in a ball-room, and sometimes, even on a race- 
course. Vfe should say he had no business there ; for, 
so far as his office is concerned, he has not, — but take 
him apart from his office, — he is there in his element. 
He ought, however, never to have entered upon that 
office, or having done so, then, out of respect for the 
office, if for no better reason, and for the sake of com- 
mon decency, he ought to be absent. 

The year of his curate-life expires. We find him 
a rector, in priest's orders. The dull lodging in the 
country town, is exchanged for the pleasant and 
elegant rectory — and whether he is himself conscious 
or unconscious of the change, we know not — but it is 
evident enough to others, that he has exchanged the 
easy indifference of an idle curate, for the self-impor- 
tance and the authority of office of an idle rector. He 
can assume, on certain occasions, a slightly pompous 
air. He was as one under orders while a curate ; and 
however little the restraint imposed upon him, — the 
influence was beneficial, so far as it went ; but that 
restraint is now removed. He has acquired a taste 
for Church architecture, and in his conversation, as 
^well as in his sermons, he dwells not unfrequently on 
apostolical succession, and the evils of dissent. A 
large and commodious meeting-house in the centre ol 



THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 13 

his parish, and which is certainly an outrage upon all 
rules of architecture, provokes his spleen ; and the 
thought that the emptiness of his church is occasioned 
by the crowded congregations of the chapel, rouses his 
indignation. He falls into the common mistake, that 
the proper way to banish dissent, is to abuse dissen- 
ters : and therefore instead of living down dissent by 
the love and zeal of his own ministrations, he thinks 
to preach it down, in his addresses from the pulpit, to 
the few among his flock who are not dissenters, and 
still well-disposed to the Established Church. 

The consequence — a very common one — is, that 
he builds up the lukewarm in prejudices, and shocks, 
even if he does not alienate, the more serious portion 
of the flock, who still cling to the beautiful service of 
the Church of England, and assemble within the walls 
of his Church. They grieve over the spirit which he 
manifests ; and they cannot shut their eyes to the 
fact, that however warm his zeal in the pulpit may 
appear, which is after all, but party zeal, he is cold as 
death with regard to spiritual things out of the pulpit. 
But time passes away ; and he gradually sinks down 
into unconcern and apathy. And while he feels the 
same enmity at heart against his dissenting parish- 
ioners as at first, he gives up the thought of reclaiming 
them, as hopeless, and gets accustomed to the sight 
of empty pews, and looks of indifference. So far as 
his sacred profession is concerned, he becomes at 
length almost a nonentity in the opinion of his flock ; 
and adds to the number of those who may well be 
reckoned cumber-grounds in the vineyard of the Lord. 
^' Son of man," said the prophet: '^what is the vine- 



14 THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 



tree more than any tree; or than a branch which is 
among the trees of the forest ? Shall wood be taken 
thereof to do any work, or will men take a pin of it to 
hang any vessel thereon?" What indeed, is a minis- 
ter of Christ more than any other man ? '' YVhat is a 
vine-tree more than any tree " — if it bear no fruit ? 
"What is it but a cumber-ground in the vineyard of the 
Lord of Hosts ? It is not for its wood, or for its blos- 
soms, or for its fragrance, but for its rich and clustering 
frait, that the vine takes a first and foremost place 
among the trees of the field. 

" No, this is too bad," my reader may say- — '^ this 
is an exaggeration : why bring before me such a 
picture ?" " Because it is true, in too many a case," 
I reply. I speak advisedly ; I allow there are many, 
very many bright and lovely exceptions to such a 
case ; but I repeat, there are too many instances of 
such a commencement to the course of one, who is, by 
outward calling, and by the sacred form of ordination, 
a pastor of '' the Church of Grod, which He hath 
purchased with His own blood." I have not exaggera- 
ted ,1 have merely given the description of the ordination 
of a trifler, a worldling, nothing more. The letter of 
a young minister of the gospel is now before me, in 
which he speaks with deep sorrow of heart, of the pro- 
fane levity of two of his companions, on the very eve- 
ning before their ordination. The waiter at the Inn, 
where they were staying till their ordination was 
over, had done something to displease one of them, 
and he cried out, ''The devil take the waiter !" when 
the other candidate for holy orders exclaimed, " Hur- 
rah for the Deacon's first speech !" Such was the 



THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 15 

levity, to say no worse, of two young men, who were 

ordained the next day at Cathedral. Why do I 

write thus ? Because I think that the quiet considera- 
tion of such statements may lead some youthful reader 
to pause, and consider seriously the tremendous respon- 
sibility he is thrusting himself into, when from any 
motive whatever, short of the divine call, which every 
minister of our Church solemnly professes to have 
received, he presents himself for ordination. " That 
the Christian Ministry," as it has been truly said, 
''has its foundation in the life of God in the soul," is 
a truth which will not admit of a moment's question. 
The candidate really in earnest to ascertain his fitness 
for so sacred an office, "^ " will take nothing for granted." 
An unconverted preacher standing forth to preach the 
gospel of converting grace, wants the one indispensa- 
ble qualification for the office. Were he even to pos- 
sess in rich abundance, all other possible qualifications, 
he would, in spite of them all, prove hmiself deplora- 
bly unfitted for the work of the ministry. We might 
imagine the Lord God — I speak with reverence — say- 
ing to him, " I called thee not ; lie down again." Per- 
sonal holiness, is, in fact, essential to miinisterial effi- 
ciency ; and in whom will personal holiness be found, 
but in him, who has personally experienced that great 
change, which is as life from the dead. 

Let then the thoughtless reader, who has chosen the 
ministry of the church as his profession, take heed. 
No change of circumstances attendant on an outward 
call, can possibly produce within him, that vital 

* Winslow. 



16 THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 



41 



change, without which, no man can see the kingdom 
of G-od. He may pass through all the circumstances 
of a most solemn ordination, and be invested with all 
the circumstances of a pastoral charge, but he may be 
all the while the mere creature of such outward cir- 
cumstances^ and become nothing more than a '' blind 
leader of the blind." "What an essential difference 
there is in the state and case of the man who is in- 
wardly moved of the Holy Ghost, to hear, as did the 
prophet of old, the voice of the Lord saying, '^ Whom 
shall I send, and who will go for us ?" and to reply — 
the love of Christ constraining him — ''Here ami; 
send me." And then to go forth as a herald of eternal 
life, to dying sinners — trembling — abashed — and well- 
nigh confounded with fear and self-distrust, exclaim- 
ing from the depths of his heart ; '' Who is sufficient 
for these things ?" and who is yet, at the same time, 
lifted up as on angel's wings, by faith and hope, and 
confiding love, and strengthened with might in the in- 
ner man, to fulfil the work of the ministry, preaching 
Christ crucified, not with enticing words of man's 
wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of 
power; and looking unto G-od to make manifest the 
savor of the knowledge of Christ, by him, in every 
place. 

But supposing the young minister to be really called 
of G-od, and to enter in ris^ht earnest uoon the sacred work 
of the ministry. It were surely advisable that he should 
learn by experience how to order a parish, before he is 
placed over it with the authority of a rector. In no 
other profession, but in that which is the most impor- 
tant, can a man take his place as a superior, till he 



THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 17 

has served under others, and been subject for some 
years to the wholesome restraint and discipline of an 
inferior office. But in our church, while too many are 
obliged to remain as curates, perhaps to the end of 
their lives, who are eminently qualified to take the 
sole charge of a parish, it often happens that some 
young novice in the ministry serves but a single year 
in a curacy, and is no sooner ordained priest, than he 
enters upon some important charge, for which he is 
utterly unfitted. This ought not to be : and our be- 
loved church will never be enabled rightly to fulfil her 
mission, till some restrictive regulations on this point 
have been generally adopted. "When writing of the 
inferior officers of the church, the great Apostle gives 
this direction, '' Let these also," namely the deacons, 
" first be proved, then let them use the office of a 
deacon, being found blameless." The young minister 
has much to unlearn, and much to learn under the 
authority of a superior in station and experience, be- 
fore he can be fitted in any way to keep that which 
has been committed to his trust : and to show himself 
approved unto Grod, a workman that need not be 
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. ^' Let 
these also first be proved," I would therefore say of 
every young and inexperienced minister, entering the 
Church of England — It is an Apostle's inspired com- 
mand, and the wisdom of the command speaks for it- 
self. '' These things I write unto thee," said that 
great Apostle, '' that thou mightest know how thou 
oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which 
is the church of the living Grod, the pillar and ground 
of the truth." Every young minister who has been 



18 THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 

taught to know himself — and till he has been thus 
taught, he is assuredly not qualified to become a 
teacher of others — ought to approve the wisdom of the 
Vpostle's words: ''Let these also first be proved," 
This is no light matter. '' It is required in stewards 
)i the mysteries of G-od," above all men, " that a man 
be found faithful." 

Alas, the spirit of priest-craft is too readily imbibed 
oy the young and inexperienced. The natural heart 
gladly drinks in the pleasant intoxication of power 
and authority ; the mere office of a superior may give 
a consciousness of importance, as perilous to the young 
minister himself, as it is absurd and offensive to the 
world around him ; and nothing but the genuine sim- 
plicity of the spiritual mind, in one who has been 
exercised unto godliness, can keep a man humble and 
steady at any period, as the pastor of the sheep of 
Christ's flock. 

The above remarks are not the theory of the writer, 
but have become his settled convictions, not only from 
the observation of many years, but from his own per- 
sonal experience in the early period of his ministry. 
He is grateful to Grod for that good providence under 
which he was kept in the office of a curate for the first 
fifteen out of the seven-and-twenty years which have 
elapsed since he first entered upon the work of the 
ministry. The mere subjection of will to which he 
was brought to yield himself on different points, was 
an admirable discipline. He can testify to the genu- 
ine kindness of heart, and the gentlemanly spirit of 
the several clergymen under whom he was placed. 
There was never an attempt at any improper control, 



THE OUTWARD CHANGE. 19 

even where there was a decided difference of opinion 
on some subjects of vital importance, on the part of any 
one of them ; but the mere circumstance, that they 
were his superiors in office, and that he was placed in a 
subordinate position, taught him at least the useful 
lesson, that " meekness of loisdom,^^ if imperatively 
required in every department of the Christian Ministry, 
is indispensable in a young and utterly inexperienced 
clergyman. 



CHAPTER 11. 

MY FIRST CURACY. 

Most young clergymen probably cherish in their 
minds some pleasant vision of the sphere in which 
they hope to labor, forgetting that they have a call 
from G-od to obey, and his work to do, wherever he 
may please to send them. Instead of the quiet coun- 
try village, and the wild and lovely scenery which I 
had pictured to myself, in which my natural tastes 
and inclinations would have been indulged, I found 
myself placed, under circumstances which I did not 
feel justified in opposing, in a country town of between 
three and four thousand inhabitants, in the tame, but 
not unpleasant county of S — Ik. But I soon found 
that it is impossible to engage heartily in any part of 
the Lord's vineyard, without becoming interested in 
the work. An excellent American clergyman once 
said to me, on my asking him what he thought of 
various parts of England which he had seen: '^I 
crossed the Atlantic not to see places, but men :" in 
like manner I soon felt that I had come to H — gh not 
to gratify my taste for the beauties of external nature ; 
but to occupy myself with the highest interests of im- 
mortal men. 

The ancient town consists of three broad streets, 
one about a mile in extent, all composed chiefly of the 
cottages of the poor : and no very long time had elap- 



MY FIRST CURACY. 21 



sed before I found myself at home in almost every one 
of them. I have never before or since seen such 
deplorable poverty, and in many instances, such awful 
instances of depravity and crime. The evils of the 
old poor-law had then almost reached their height in 
that part of England. I say almost, for I heard after 

I had left H gh, that things grew worse and worse ; 

but notwithstanding the misery and the vice which 
met my eyes daily, I still feel it impossible to describe 
the absorbing interest which my occupation excited 
within me ; and I may truly say that there was scarcely 
a family however wretched, or however vicious, in 
which I did not find that kindness and sympathy would 
not win for me a welcome, and where I was not 
treated with respect and even courtesy. 

I had been ordained a deacon at Cambridge, in the 
Chapel of Christ's College, by the present Bishop of 
Lincoln, with letters dimissory from the Archbishop 
of Canterbury, and I set out early in the week for my 
curacy. My road lay through Bury St. Edmunds, 
and the ancient town of Lavenham, but I was able to 
give but a passing glance at the stately ruins at Bury, 
and the fine old Church of Lavenham, one of the most 
graceful structures I have ever seen. It was in the 
charming month of May ; the fields and hedge-row 
trees were bright with the fresh green of spring, and 
the cottage -gardens by the road-side gay with wall- 
flowers and lilacs in full bloom. The day was warm 
and beautiful, and here and there the women were 
sitting at their spinning-wheels before the cottage- 
doors. I could feel the throbbing of my heart as the 
carriage in which I drove descended the hill at the 



22 MY FIRST CURACY. 



entrance of H gh, when my eyes rested for the first 

time upon the clustered houses and church spire of 
the ancient town. I crossed the bridge over which 
the godly Rowland Taylor passed when he entered 

H gh for the last time to witness a good confession 

of the faith once delivered to the saints, at the stake 
and in the flames of martyrdom, passing through the 
midst of the flock to whom he had so lovingly preach- 
ed ''Jesus Christ and him crucified." 

I stopped at the rectory, before the noble tower 
which serves as a gateway to the house. It was built 
in the reign of Henry the seventh ; but has sustained 
no injury from time. I was received by the good old 
Rector and his family with as much cordiality and 
kindness as if I had formed one of their own domestic 
circle ; and during the time that I remained as his 
curate, I saw no change, except that of increasing 
kindness from every member of the family. They had 
insisted on my being their guest for a few days ; and 
the kind old doctor himself led me to a pleasant 
chamber, overlooking the charming old rectory-garden. 

I look back with delight and gratitude to my 
intercourse with that family : and knowing them in- 
timately as 1 did, I can truly say, that I have seldom 
met with such genuine simplicity, and so much of 
that kindness which is of the heart. Their very faults 
partook of the simplicity of their character, for they 
were utterly unskilled in the art of concealing them. 
How many persons have I since met, standing far 
higher in the estimation of the world, just because 
they were so much more like the world ; how many 
that were deemed much more unworldly, who had not 



MY FIRST CURACY. 23 

had half the same honesty of heart and integrity of 
principle ! 

Had I been the son of my kind rector, he could not 
have placed greater confidence in me : and even on 
points where he did not agree with me, I always found 
such real gentlemanly feeling, such urbanity and 
gentleness, that it was impossible not to love him. 
He sometimes gave an amusing importance to trifles^ 
but he never failed to give its proper importance to 
every thing of a really serious character. It was one 
of his easy requirements of me, that the rector and 
curate should always vfalk together to church in full 
canonicals ; and I see him now, his finely-shaped head 
uncovered, and his handsome features beaming with 
kindness, coming forth from under the venerable arch 
of the gateway, his large sermon case, and his bouquet 
of the brightest and sweetest flowers of the season in 
one hand, and his shovel-hat with its rose in the other, 
turning occasionally to make some courteous remark 
to his curate, or some smiling salutation to the groups 
of his parisoners around the porch. He would often 
speak of the noble form of our liturgy, and he showed 
his admiration and delight in it by the manner in 
which he made the responses, audibly, but with all 
his heart, and sometimes with the tears filling his 
eyes. His veneration for the character of the Martyr, 
as he always called Rowland Taylor, was very great ; 
and it was chiefly owing to his exertions, that the spot 
where he died, and the old fragment of stone with its 
rude inscription still marking the place, were en- 
closed, and a monument erected to the memory of the 
noble martyr. How many an instance clo T remember 



24 MY FIRST CURACY. 



of the warmth and tenderness of his heart. On one 
occasion he had requested me to bring a class of the 
elder school-boys before him, in order that he might 
admonish some of them for bad conduct in church : 
and I ushered the band up the spiral staircase of the 
tower, to his library, a noble apartment immediately 
above the gateway. The boys were not all offenders ; 
but if I remember, it was the whole of the first class 
that I brought up to him. "We found him with as 
much severity as it was possible to throw into his 
mild countenance, evidently intending to make his 
presence terrible to the offenders. Without waiting 
for my report, or hearing me point out the especial 
delinquents, he commenced an attack upon a gentle 
and peculiarly well-behaved boy, and spoke in so loud 
a voice, and with such awful tones, that I was unable 
for some time to make him understand that he was 
addressing the wrong boy, and that he was not in any 
way to blame ; but in another moment he was seeking 
to comfort the weeping boy, with a voice trembling 
with tender emotion, while the tears were trickling 
down his own face. 

One of the first affecting calls which I received in 
my new office of a minister of the gospel, was to visit 
three young men who were struck by the sun when 
working in the harvest fields. It was indeed a remark- 
able fact that they should all have been seized at the 
same time ; and I went alternately from one house to 
the other, in different parts of the town, to witness 
nearly the same scene : the young wife and her chil- 
dren, almost overwhelmed with grief, and the husband, 
in the prime of youth and strength, lying in almost a 



MY FIRST CURACY. 2b 

hopeless state. They were at times delirious, one of 
them more so than the other two : and after a few 
days, the skill and the medicine of the doctors proved 
unavailing in the case of two of them. They had 
both been well-conducted young men, and so far as I 
could judge, appeared to be truly penitent, clinging 
earnestly to the hope set before them, and looking for 
pardon and eternal life to the glorious B.edeemer who 
had died for them. 

I was with one of the young men at the time of his 
departure. It was sudden, and the shock was the 
greater to them who were present, because the worst 
symptoms of his illness had yielded to the means re- 
sorted to, and there was reason to suppose that the 
danger was over. Just as a ray of hope gleamed upon 
the anxious face of his young wife, he sunk back and 
expired in her arms. The next day I saw the lifeless 
body laid out upon the bed, and prepared for the coffin. 
They had scattered flowers over it. His shirt-collar 
was open, and a long wreath of Love-lies-bleeding lay 
across his manly chest, its blood-red color contrasting 
deeply with the pallid whiteness of the skin. Not 
many hours before, his heart had throbbed beneath 
that bosom with all the warmth of honest affection for 
the delicate and gentle creature, who stood weeping 
by my side, a bereaved and desolate widow. 

The third man bore a doubtful character. He was 
when in health a daring and determined character ; 
seldom if ever at church, but often at the alehouse, 
and leading altogether a wild and reckless life — but I 
have seldom seen any one apparently upon a dying 
bed who seemed under deeper convictions of sin. or 
2 



26 MY FIRST CURACY. 



more tremblingly anxious that GocI might spare him 
a little longer, and give him time to prove the sincerity 
of his repentance, and the earnestness of his desire to 
lead a new life. His illness took th^ turn of an infec- 
tious fever, and the small close room in which he lay^ 
with the sun burning upon the roof — for it was un- 
cieled — and the small low window which admitted lit- 
tle or no air, was almost pestilential. I was Vfarned 
by his doctor of the danger I incurred in going to him: 
but it was impossible to think of danger when a dying 
fellow-creature seemed to hang upon the words oi 
the message of Grod, which it was my office to bring 
before him. Hie deep anxiety gave a kind of elo- 
quence to his protestations- of sincerity ;. and from 
W'hat I had known of th^ man before, and his careles:^ 
unconcern, those protest^^tions were the more striking, 
Grod heard the prayers that v/ere offered,, and the un- 
fruitful fig-tree ^^''as spared, when it seemed to all as; 
if the decree had already gone forth : '' Cut it down."" 
The bodies of the two other men were borne to the 
grave, and this man slowly recovered. It v^ras a mys- 
terious and awful dispensation. The time that wa& 
asked, was granted ; the opportunity so earnestly 
desired, was afforded ; I could not help trusting that 
the convictions which had w^orked so powerfully with- 
in him, had been those which issue in conversion. 
But was it so ? About a month after his recovery, ort 
passing through one of the most wretched parts of the^ 
town, my attention was called to a crowd assembled 
round the door of a public house ; the door was closed, 
and the words I heard when drawing nigh, were: 
*' Oh Sir, nobody dares to enter ; there^s a drunken 



MY FIRST CURACY. 27 



man raving like a madman in that house ; he has been 
striking right and left, and striving to tear up the 
benches, and now he has got into the bar, and they 
can do nothing with him." I managed to enter the 
house, and I found the man lying on the floor, raving 
and pouring forth the most frightful oaths. His 
violence had apparently disarmed him of strength, for 
he did not attempt to rise ; he knew me not, but I 
knew him too well. I recognized in that frantic 
drunkard the sole survivor of that band of three, who 
had been smitten as it were on the same day, and 
whom I had last seen apparently penetrated to the 
heart with a sense of G-od's goodness towards him, 
and of his own unworthiness of such goodness. A few 
years after I had good reason to know that he had 
sunk into deeper guilt ; and I felt that the two widow- 
ed mothers, who were still mourning over the hus- 
bands of their youth, were happier and more blest in 
their desolate homes than the w^ife of that hardened 
offender. 

How touchingly one of them had spoken to me of 
her loss. "' He had always," she said, '' a strong arm 
to work for me and for his children, and he was 
always so kind and sweet tempered to me and to his 
little ones ; and when he came home in the evening, 
he was pleased and contented with anything I had to 
set before him, and he never touched a penny of his 
wages, but brought all the money home to me at the 
end of the week." And yet he was taken and the 
; other left. Was not tliat survivor spared that he might 
see that Grod had at least given him time to turn to 
I Him and to seek pardon and repentance ? What his 



28 MY FIRST CURACl'. 



course may have been since I last saw him I know not, 
but from what I did see of him after his recovery, I 
was thus early in the ministry taught that the peni- 
tence of many a death-bed may wear an appearance 
of reality, by which the sick man is not only deceiv- 
ing others but himself. It is not for me to judge any 
man, and I can truly say that in such a case I would 
rather hope than fear ; but unless I am much mistaken, 
that man had commenced a course which could only 
end in everlasting wretchedness. 



CHAPTER ITL 

THE WORD OF GOD. 

The cry has often been raised, that the church is in 
danger. Whatever may have been the ground for this 
alarm in days gone by, there is but too much reason 
to fear that such is now really the case. I do not 
speak of the attacks of her enemies ; — we have little 
reason to fear them. But there are fatal symptoms 
about her state, at present, symptoms which are the 
too sure forerunners of corruption and decay. Many of 
her faithful members have been long quietly observant 
of the causes of decay to which I allude — many who 
are not men of morbid minds, but who cannot shut 
their eyes to evils which increase with every passing 
day. 

The way-marks of truth and error are plainly laid 
down in the word of Gt^od ; and he who diligently 
seeks for divine guidance may easily find them. But 
when we look to our statesmen, we find able and 
eminent men substituting their own wretched systems 
of expediency, for the simple wisdom and the glorious 
principles of the Holy Bible ; strangely forgetful that 
if that Bible be really from G-od — it is not possible to 
conceive that He will give His blessing to any sys- 
tems which are not founded upon its principles, or are 
in any way opposed to them. Statesmen who profess 
to regard the word of G-od, not only as the charter of 



30 THE WORD OF GOD. 



their salvation, but as the spring-head of all wisdom, 
would in fact be wiser than God. Surely it would be 
the more honest way — awful as that course would be 
— to declare openly their ignorance or their unbelief 
of its truths — than thus to mislead themselves and 
others. 

Past events in the history of their country hold 
out their warnings in vain. The recorded experience 
of some of our wisest and greatest statesmen in former 
times, offer instruction to them in vain. They are 
occupied in the ceaseless work of sapping and mining 
the bulwarks of our Protestant constitution. 

"Who can read the Parliamentary reports of the 
day, without being struck by the calm and compla- 
cent self-assurance, of some of our leaders in both 
houses, and on both sides of either house. Expediency 
before man, rather than high principle before God, and 
the upright decision of a real Christian — on questions 
where right and wrong are as palpable as light and 
darkness. And more pitiable, because less considerate, 
is the levity of our second-rate statesmen — men of less 
weight and character — whose empty declamations are 
but as the idle flutterings of some ephemeral insect, 
around subjects of grave importance, and of vital 
interest. 

All this is sad, and calls for deep sorrow of heart. 
But even this is less deplorable than the more fatal 
symptoms of corruption and decay, which manifest 
themselves in those who are peculiarly called upon to 
stand forth as the expounders of the oracles of God, 
and the teachers and guides of the people. The 
teaching of the Pulpit, in accordance with the false 



THE WORD OF GOD. 31 



notions which too commonly prevailj is considared by 
many, both among the clergy and the laity, as of far 
less importance than it deserves. Its influence for 
good might be, and has been, incalculably great. It 
is too apparent, alas, from many of the sermons which 
are preached, that the system of the preacher is not 
drawn immediatelj^ from the word of Grod : and that 
a lower standard has been taken by the minister. Yie 
look in vain for the simplicity which is in Christ,-^ — 
for the strength and raciness of Holy Scripture. It 
appears to me that the cause of this deteriorated tone, 
both among the clergy and the laity, is to be found in 
the fact, that the v/ord of Grod is neglected. The 
Bible is not in its proper place : it is not regarded as 
oi supreme authority, that authority beyond w"hich 
there is no appeal. It has been truly said: ^^that 
men act in a very different manner from this with 
regard to human laws. The advocate does not cite 
the comment, but the statute : the physician, the artist, 
refer to the rules of their science, instead of resting on 
the explanations. They know the value of certainty, 
where authority can be had ; and instead of substitu- 
ting conjectural for ascertained truths, they go to the 
fountain-head ef knowledge, and. each desires to be the 
commentator for himself. But on the study of theolo- 
gy, the reverse has too often been witnessed." With 
ireference especially to preaching, it is impossible not 
to feel that its influence must fall infinitely belov/ that 
which it is appointed to be when this is the case. The 
preacher may ^'excite the nntural feelings: he may 
amuse the imagination ; he may touch the heart ; but 
he never can speak with the power of a servant of 



32 THE WORD OF GOO. 

Grod, nor ever exhort and rebuke with all authority, as 
becomes his office. Without this, he may produce, 
under favorable circumstances, a transient effect ; he 
may use the general truths of the gospel, as a means 
of artificial excitement ; but he never can win souls 
to Christ, nor prove himself a wise master-builder by 
the endurance and stability of his work. But with 
this single power he may be like the youthful David, 
a glorious instrument in the hands of Grod, casting 
down imaginations, and every high thing that exaltetb 
itself against the knowledge of &od, and bringing into 
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."^ 

There is, I rejTeat, no appeal from the word of God. 
Let the minister of Christ be true to the word, and 
preach it faithfully and lovingly, and it will do its own 
work : it will be either the savor of life unto life, or 
of death unto death to every hearer. 

It is from the preaching of the word in its sim- 
plicity, its entireness and its fulness, and to nothing 
short of this, that vre are warranted in looking for 
seals to our ministry. The living word of the living 
God will not return to him void, but will accomplish 
that whercunto it is sent ; and we who are ministers 
of that word, have cause indeed to tremble lest we 
darken the counsel of the Lord by words without 
knowledge, or by any words of our own, even if we 
possessed the eloquence of aa angel. 

There is one rule which the preacher of the gospel 
should never lose sight of : It is this. '^Thus saith 
the Lord !'^ — '' He that hath my word, let him speak 

* Raikes on Clerical Edueatioa. 



THE WORD OF GOD. 83 

my word faithfully." I well remember a sermon 
preached some years ago, and with which at the time 
the preacher felt thoroughly dissatisfied : perhaps if he 
had spoken the truth to himself he would have owned 
that his dissatisfaction arose from the deep sense that 
he felt of his own incapacity, and the poverty of his 
own ideas and illustrations in that sermon. He came 
down from the pulpit humbled in his own eyes, and 
cast down in spirit ; feeling in how inefficient a man- 
ner he had ministered to the wants of a crowded 
congregation. One beautiful sentence however of 
Holy Scripture had been constantly brought before his 
hearers ; and secret prayer had not been wanting on 
the part of the preacher, that the Lord Grod would 
send down His Holy Spirit and give effect to His own 
word. The words I allude to — and they were those 
of the text — were from the 32nd chap, of Deuteronomy, 
and part of the 47th verse : " It is not a vain thing for 
you, because it is your life." 

On the following morning, a letter was put into 
the preacher's hand. It came by the post. It was 
short, and evidently written by one unskilled in letter- 
writing, but its few earnest words were eloquent with 
the importunate anxiety of a soul newly awakened to 
a sense of its own priceless value, and to the con- 
sciousness of guilt to which no remedy had been as 
yet applied. The writer asked for guidance and in- 
struction ; and spoke as one bewildered and distressed, 
helpless, and almost hopeless of relief. The conclusion 
of the letter was peculiarly touching. *^ Oh Sir, do 
not turn away from me, for it is not a vain thing' for 

me, because it is my life /" A few words were added 
2# 



34 THE WORD OF GOD. 

by way of postscript, requesting that a reply might be 
sent by the post, directed to two initial letters, Post 

office, . A reply was immediately sent ; but the 

reply was rather in the shape of an inquiry, requesting 
to know more of the writer of the letter, whose sex 
and position were not declared. Another letter soon 
followed : it began with these words : '^ I am a poor 
servant-girl." And after speaking of her extreme 
ignorance, and of her deep anxiety, the following short 
account Avas given. '' Last Sunday I went to church 
in the morning, and I laughed all the time ; I went 
to church in the afternoon, and I slept during the 
whole service. I went to your lecture. Sir, in the 
evening, and then it pleased God, for the first time in 
my life, to show me that I was a poor, lost, miserable 
creature." The words of the letter were ill-shaped, 
and the page seemed disfigured by them ; but there 
was a natural flow of language, beautiful from its 
earnest and touching simplicity. If I remember 
rightly, no name was yet given, and no clue afforded 
by which I might discover the abode of the writer. 
But I now felt that I might be far more useful to my 
unknown correspondent, if I could see and converse 
with her ; if I could hear from her own lips her difli- 
culties and her doubts, than if we continued to cor- 
respond by letter. But in this I was mistaken. She 
complied with my request, and called upon me. But 
sbe who could write with so much ease, and express 
her feelings so readily on paper, had scarcely a word 
to say, but was abashed and silent, proposing no ques- 
tion for herself, and answering those I put to her with 
a reserve which I found it impossible to overcome. 



THSJ WORD OF G01&. 35 

During an acquaintance of many years, this manner 
has still continued. She has written to me from time 
to time, and in her letters, she is able to express herself 
with the same natural flow of language. But from 
that evening, when the word of (xod won its way to her 
heart, and the Spirit of G-od impressed its vital truth 
there, awakening her whole soul to a sense of its eter- 
nal interests, quickening her conscience with the deep 
conviction of her lost and sinful state— and causing 
her to realize that night the message of G-od to her 
soul, and to '^ know that it was not a vain thing to 
her, because it was her life"-— a change as remarkable 
as life from the dead, took place in her ; and she has 
"continued from that time in one quiet course of con- 
sistent godliness. She was one of an ungodly, but 
respectable family, and had been till then careless and 
light-minded. Nothing has been more remarkable in 
her ever since, than her unvarying seriousness and her 
modest propriety of manner. The bow had been 
drawn at a venture, but the arrow, directed by G-od's 
unerring hand, had reached its mark, and by what 
was literally the foolishness of preaching, an immortal 
but perishing creature had been made wise unto sal- 
vation. It is a sad, sad proof of the presumptuous 
ignorance of some professing themselves to be wise in 
the present day, that they attempt to throw discredit 
upon preaching — " G-od's great ordinance," as Cecil 
has well called it, to bring souls to Himself. There 
is scarcely a portion of the inspired word more full of 
solemn grandeur, more awfully impressive, than the 
comm.ission given by the great apostle Paul to his 
beloved son in the faith, towards the close of his 



K 



36 THE ArORD OF Gon 

Second Epistle to Timothy— his last Epistle — " I 
charge thee before God and the Lord Jesns Christy 
Avho shall jndge the quick and the dead at His ap- 
pearing, and His kingdom ; preach the icord.''^ ^' Faith 
Cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God/' 
for it is by the word of God which liveth and abideth 
for ever that man is born again ; " and this is the 
word," adds the Apostle Peter, '' which by the gospel 
is preached unto you," 1 Peter i. 23 — 25. 

The letter which follows, bears in so remarkable a 
manner upon the foregoing observations on the power 
of the word of God, that I think I cannot do better 
than append it here. 

It was addressed to ms by a very fine manly fellow^ 
at the time that I was the Rector of St. Peter's parish^ 

in the city of C r. This man afterwards became 

a member of my Bible class of Christian brothers, and 
a regular attendant at the ordinance of the Lord's 
Supper. It made my heart glad to see him, meekly 
kneeling at the table of the Lord, in his full regimen- 
tals as a sergeant of the guards, his pious and happy 
wife kneeling by his side — eating together of the same 
bread, and drinking together of the same cup of holy 
communion, as heirs together of the same glorious in- 
heritance. 

''And the soldiers likewise demanded oi him, 
saying, And what shall we do ? And he said unto theiii. 
Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely ; and 
be content wiih vour was'es." L7/ke in. 14. 



'' Ptev. Sir, — I hope you will excuse the liberty 1 
have taken in thus addressing you. but you lately said. 



i 



THE WORD OF GOD. 37 

that " the Christian must by no means conceal his 
sentiments, but that he should hold them forth for the 
benefit of others ;" whether my sentiments will be of any 
good to others, Q-od only knows, may his blessing rest 
upon what I write, poor, feeble, and simple as it may be. 

" A few Sundays ago, being at St. Peter's Church, 
I was very much struck with one verse of the second 
lesson, so much so that I could not for the life of me 
pay any attention to the remainder of the service. I 
went home and read that verse over and over several 
times the next day. It was still the same, I could 
not forget it. It disturbed me greatly, and yet I could 
not tell why it did so, but I still took the Bible, and 
read that verse. At last I applied it to myself with 
prayer to G-od to enlighten my understanding, and 
show me why I should be so uneasy about it ; the verse 
is to be found in the 3rd chapter of Luke ; it is the 
14th verse : '' And the soldiers likewise demanded of 
him, saying. And what shall we do, and he said unto 
them. Do violence to no man, neither accuse any false- 
ly, and be content with your wages." 

" Now, Sir, as to violence I thought I never had to 
my recollection done violence to any man, so I said to 
myself, that part of the verse cannot be the cause of 
its weighing so heavily on my mind. I applied the 
next parts, " neither accuse any falsely :" this like the 
other part I could not remember to have done ; but 
when I came to apply the next part, and to consider a 
little about being " content with my wages," I could 
very well remember the time when I should not have 
been content, if I had had ten times as much as I now 
have. Thus, Sir, my eyes began to be partly opened. 



38 THE WORD OF GOD. 



I went on to consider how it was that I had been so 
discontented. It was because I had been used to neg- 
lect the principal part of a soldier's duty, that which 
all soldiers should consider deeply, the duty they owe 
to God, — this it was which I had long neglected, — 
this was the cause of discontent for many years. I 
had received a soldier's wages without ever once re- 
turning thanks to Him who alone could have made 
me contented and happy with my wages, and given 
me a blessing with them. These reflections. Sir, 
showed me that I had been guilty of the other two 
sins, namely, violence, and false accusation. In the 
first place I found that I myself was the man against 
whom I had committed the greatest violence, — and 
not only against myself, for often have I in my drun- 
kenness committed violence against the dear wife of 
my bosom, whom I now love better than ever I did, 
and many a time had I, vvhen in my drunken state, 
accused her falsely — when I think of the awful violence 
I have committed against myself in so long neglecting 
to attend to the duty which I now begin to see I owe to 
G-od, it makes me indeed wonder at His mercy and good- 
ness in thus SDarini2: me to see the awful dans^er I was in. 

1 ~ o 

" I cannot. Rev. Sir. express my feelings to you on 
this occasion as I should wish to do : you will see by 
these few lines that I have spent my time in sin and 
wickedness, instead of improving it in learning to live 
to the glory of G-od. May God help me now, and 
strengthen me against all temptations, and against the 
corruption of my own deceitful and wicked heart. 
" I remain. Rev. Sir, your obedient, humble servant, 
Henry , Sergeant, Regiment." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PULPIT. 

The importance of the short space of time which is, as 
it were, given by common consent to the receiving of 
the message of the Lord God to His assembled wor- 
shippers, is almost incalculable; and yet how few 
ministers seem ever to have become properly aware of 
this. I speak here especially of the message from the 
pulpit. The word of G-od has been spoken, and is 
always spoken, when any portion of the Bible is read to 
the people in the course of the service. But when the 
sermon is preached, it may be more peculiarly said, 
that the minister stands up for the purpose of deliver- 
ing the message of G-od to the people. Is this oppor- 
tunity improved, or is it lost ? We should do well to 
put this question to ourselves. 7Jhe minister should 
be as one, who hears a voice from among the assem- 
bly, addressing him in these well-known words — 
'' Now then, we are all here present before G-od, to 
hear all things that are commanded thee of G-od."* 

At such seasons the minister of the G-ospel occupies 
a vantage-ground, which can scarcely be said to be 
offered to him on any other occasion. The upraised 
eyes, the attentive ears of those who sit around him, 
convey to him the assurance that the whole assembly 

^Actsx. 83. 



f 



40 THE PULPIT. 



have come away from the world — from its business, 
and its cares, for the express purpose of giving their 
quiet, serious consideration to the word spoken to 
them. A wise and faithful servant of Christ, really 
intent upon his Master's work, w^ould surely put forth 
all his powers to seize upon the opportunity, and catch 
the moment ere it flies. He would bring full before 
them the affecting claims of their Divine Redeemer 
upon their love ; and strive to exercise that gentle 
wisdom, in which he is skilled, that winneth souls. 
Some one hearer may be there, who might have profit- 
ed by that opportunity to all eternity, but to whom it 
may prove an opportunity lost, and that perhaps for 
ever ; it may be the last time that the word of Grod 
is heard by that man on earth ! Ah, how shall the 
watchman answer for neglect of duty ! Will not the 
blood of that immortal creature be required at his 
hand? 

Let the best instructed scribe, however the most 
gifted preacher, beware of a harsh or dogmatical spirit. 
Too many, for instance, who are zealous in their Mas- 
ter's cause, and in deep, sad earnest in seeking the 
salvation of their hearers, are apt to acquire a habit of 
scolding, or of angry expostulations from the pulpit, 
unconscious that they have caught iTiore of the spirit 
of the two disciples, who desired to call down fire from 
heaven upon those who refused to receive their Mas- 
ter, than of the lovely Spirit of our gracious Lord, 
when he rebuked his disciples, and said to them, ''Ye 
know not what spirit ye are of; for the Son of man is 
not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." 

The authority of the j)rcacher of the everlasting 



THE PULPIT. 41 



Gospel is unquestionable, it is the authority of an 
ambassador, not of an earthly monarch, but of the 
King of kings. He stands up ''in Chrisfs stead^'^ 
but his own spirit should be loving and gentle, even 
to tenderness. '' We w^ere gentle among you," writes 
the great preacher to the Grentiles, in his 1st epistle 
to the Thessalonians, ii. 7, '' even as a nurse cherisheth 
her children." The same Apostle who Avrites, '' Ex- 
hort and rebuke with all authority ^'^''^ writes also, 
'' Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering ^^'''^ 
and his directions to the preacher are, '' Be gentle unto 
all men, apt to teach — patient — in meekness instruct- 
ing those that oppose themselves. "J "- Knowing the 
terrors of the Lord," he says, '' we persuade men." 
These inspired instructions claim a peculiar consider- 
ation from the youthful and inexperienced preacher at 
the present day, indeed at all times. The most dog- 
matical preachers are too commonly those, who, from 
their youth and inexperience, have the least right to 
be so. 

There is so much truth, and so much good sense in 
the following remarks on the sermons of some of our 
young and crude preachers, that I copied them some 
years ago for my own use, from a paper in the Chris- 
tian Observer. 

*' The true character of the gospel is tenderness ; 
tears, not frowns, become the pulpit ; and the most 
profligate sinner should perceive you feel for him, and 
are anxious to convince and persuade him, not that 
you are angry with him. Should the minister of 

* Titus ii. 15. t 2 Tim. iv. 2. \ 2 Tim. ii. 24, 26. 



42 THE PULPIT. 



Christ be led by the charges which he specifies, to 
learn to mix up a still larger portion of affectionate ex- 
postulation and melting entreaty with his just remon- 
strances and rebukes, the effect would be greatly to 
the furtherance of the gospel. '' Knowing the terrors 
of the Lord, we persuade men.^' The best rule, per- 
haps, which could be given to any clergyman who is 
accused of pulpit harshness, is to keep himself almost 
entirely out of his sermons. We have known some 
clergymen, especially young clergymen, with the best 
intentions, so fill their discourses with explanations of 
their own conduct, vindicating their style of preach- 
ing, telling their people how much they feel, why 
they think it their duty to speak as they do, and ever 
using authority instead of appeal or argument ; that 
while they mean only to magnify their office, the 
people think they are only magnifying themselves: 
and that their w^hole address is, substantially saying, 
^ '' I sit in Moses's seat," and it is your duty to obey 
my instructions.' It is a rule laid down by all mas* 
ters of rhetoric, that a public speaker, even when ho 
speaks with authority, ought always to exhibit the 
most perfect respect, nay, even a degree of modest 
deference, towards his auditory. If he once fail in 
this, he loses all his influence among them. 

For want of observing this rule of common sense, 
a rule remarkably displayed in the Holy Scriptures, 
and of which St. Paul's Epistles and addresses (see for 
example that to Philemon) are beautiful illustrations, 
many a young minister has greatly impaired his own 
usefulness, especially where his flock included many 
persons of high education, and conspicuous stations in 



THE PULPIT. 



43 



society. We have known a young man, not perhaps 
yet in Priest's orders, under the idea of being faithful, 
and keeping up the dignity of his office, stand before 
a large assembly of persons, chiefly of the middle and 
upper classes of society, and preach in a style of dicta- 
tion which only provoked hostility, without conducing 
to self-examination or conviction. Instead of proving 
and reasoning, and urging, and remonstrating, and 
appealing, making the word of G-od the only weapon 
of his warfare, his discourses have been one tissue of 
unintentional egotism. *' What I would have you do, 
is this ;" " it is your duty to do so and so, whether 
you will hear or forbear." " I charge you now to go 
to your houses and meditate on all I have said ;" " it 
is our duty to preach, and yours to hear," and so 
forth. The popular comment on all which was, " That 
young man seems to lift up himself wonderfully ; I 
suppose he is come to set us all to rights." When a 
clergyman in these days of unhappily lax discipline 
and dilapidated pastoral authority, has by long and 
affectionate intercourse with his flock, worked his way 
to influence among them, his own wishes and direc- 
tions become arguments : and he might be egotistical 
with less ofTence, though egotism in such a case would 
be superfluous. He knows a far better method " of 
setting people to rights ;" for we do not mean that it 
is not the duty even of the youngest minister, to wish 
really " to set all his parish to rights ;" he goes there 
for the very purpose ; he would ofiend against God, 
his own soul, and his flock, if he did not make it his 
constant effort ; but he has lamentably mistaken the 
true method of so doing if his conduct or preaching 



44 THE PULFIT. 



call forth what is currently understood by that expres- 
sion. Might he not have preached the same solemn 
truths, and with equal zeal and faithfulness, and yet 
have left a very diflerent impression ? " That seems 
a very modest young man." " Yes, but how earnest 
he was. I never saw a clergyman more impressed 
with his subject, or more anxious to impress others. 
I do not quite understand his doctrines, and I think 
some things that he said were objectionable ; for he 
seemed, I thought, to set up faith above works; and 
to speak as if there were little use in being good, and 
going to church and sacrament ; but he evidently 
wishes us well, and was not dogmatical, and did not 
force his sentiments upon us like an election speech at 
a hustings. I say so. I say so. I quite like the 
young man's spirit, and shall go again in the after- 
noon." 

These matters will of course vary with places, 
preachers, and audiences : for the ignorant and illiter- 
ate often prefer being dogmatized upon ; they measure 
the strength of proof by the vehemence of assertion ; 
and a preacher whose mind is cast into a reflecting 
mould, and who is not accustomed to enforce his posi- 
tions, by '' I say so," and "only listen to me," often 
finds some difficulty in adapting himself to their men- 
tal habits. But in the case of the more refined and 
educated ranks of society, this style of address is 
usually powerless and revolting. The physician has 
dropped it, the man of science has dropped it ; it is 
not heard of in the senate or the lecture-room ; when 
therefore, a young man, truly zealous and pious, but 
with perhaps somewhat a slender stock of divinity. 



THE PULPIT. 45 



and not over full of general reading, adopts it, it is 
almost sure to create disgust. He may fall into it 
either unconsciously or from a mistaken notion of 
what is the Scriptural authority of his function : 
assuming the express language of prophets and apos- 
tles, as if he stood exactly in their place, and was 
commissioned to address mankind in precisely the 
same tone of authority. Authority he has in declar- 
ing his Saviour's message ; but the sermon in which 
he declares it is his own ; and this ought greatly to 
modify the mode of his address. 

Vehement and reiterated assertion goes for nothing; 
this is the preacher's own, not his master's ; he is a 
pleader, not a judge, a fallible expounder of infallible 
statutes, and he sadly mistakes his province, if he 
mixes up him^self with his message. 

I remember one sermon which seemed to me nearer 
the perfection of preaching, than any that I have ever 
heard before or since. The preacher was one of my 
most valued friends. He is one of the most eloquent 
men this age has produced ; but there was nothing of 
what the world calls eloquence in that sermon. It 
was rather the preaching of one, who like the great 
Apostle, has thrown aside every advantage which be- 
longed to himself or to his peculiar gifts — all eloquence 
and excellency of speech or of wisdom, and was de- 
termined to know nothing among his hearers, but 
Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 

The church in which I heard this sermon, had been 
lately built in the heart of a district in London, in- 
habited by the most abandoned characters — a locality 
reckoned hardly safe in open day. In walking thither, 



46 THE PULPIT. 



we had to pass through one street in particular, filled 
with dens of iniquity of various kinds. I have seen 
there, for instance, hundreds of silk pocket-handker- 
chiefs, of all colors and patterns, hung out openly for 
sale, furnished, it is well known, from the spoils of 
the pickpockets. There stood that quiet sanctuary ; 
its open doors and free seats, inviting the very refuse 
and dregs of society to come in, and hear the full free 
offer of pardon and grace to the vilest and to the 
worst ; and there, in the midst of a mixed multitude, 
hanging with breathless attention on his deep and 
solemn voice, stood that earnest preacher of the word, 
which had melted and transformed his own inmost 
heart — pleading as for his own soul, with the souls of 
those that heard him. We had come from a distance, 
and the sermon had already commenced when we 
entered the church. The scripture on which he was 
preaching, was perhaps the most appropriate that he 
could have chosen for such a place and such a people 
— ''This man receiveth sinners !" ^ The words were 
frequently on his lips ; the spirit of those words breath- 
ed in every tone of his voice, which was broken and 
trembling at times with deep emotion, and in every 
change of his expressive countenance. Christ Jesus 
was all and in all in that sermon ; His name was 
truly there as ointment poured forth, and ''the whole 
house was filled with the odour of the ointment." 
The preacher spoke of that glorious Redeemer as the 
human, tender, sympathising friend and brother of the 
wretched sinner — the outcast — the lost — the dead in 

* Luke XT. 



THE PULPIT. 47 



trespasses and sins. He dwelt upon the gentleness 
and kindness of the Lord Jesus, and seemed as one 
pouring balm into the wounds of the broken-heartedj 
and meeting the cold repulsive hardness of the hard- 
ened, with all the tenderness of his Master ^s incon- 
ceivable love. 

He described the whole Mission and character of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, as embodied in those touching 
words ; "" This man receiveth sinners," He enlarged 
upon the divine simplicity of the salvation of the gos- 
pel of the grace of G-od— a full, free, offer of forgive- 
ness to every one, who will call upon the name of the 
Lord. He invited all to come and buy, without money^ 
and without price. He met the earnest anxious cry 
of the despairing, trembling wrc^tch — -'^ What must I 
do to be saved ?" v/ith that fall yet concise epitome of 
the whole gospel, '' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved." Of all his hearers, perhaps 
few could enter more entirely and more heartily, into 
the spirit of his application of the words which he had 
made the subject of his address, than myself. Those 
words had but a short time before penetrated into thft 
depths of my own heart, and filled my whole soul with 
humble and adoring love. I had met with this pas- 
sage in the Life of the godly Charles, of Bala, and the 
words had left an impression, never I trust to bo 
effaced ; the passage is this — '' The following words 
have been much impressed on my mind of late, ' This 
man receiveth sinners.' The most invaluable words ! 
Though I should have been presumptuously confident, 
and hypocritically religious all my days, yet these 
words take me in, now, ia such a manner, as to leave 



48 THE PULPIT. 



me no room to escape. For ever blessed be the Lord, 
for Jesus Christ I I am sure I find Him precious to 
my soul. Had I the same view of myself, of my 
guilt and sin, which I have now, without some little 
discovery of Chri^, as constituted by the Father an 
all-sufficient Saviour, I should, in a degree, feel the 
misery of the inhabitants of hell. It is heaven on 
earth," he soon after adds — '• to live to Christ. It is 
heaven above to be for ever ivith Him." 

The words of the preacher came sweeping over the 
chords of my heart, which had so lately trembled be- 
neath the same thrilling words, and now every chord 
again responded to them. ^' This man receiveth 
sinners." 

AVas there a wretched sinner present who caught 
and clung to this scripture with a more eager, a more 
earnest grasp, than myself? It was indeed — and I 
deeply felt it — '' a faithful saying, and worthy of all 
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners, of whom I was chief." All around me 
were surely — so I fervently hoped and prayed — cling- 
ing to the same assurance, but the words had produced 
an insulating effect upon me. "Was not I, in my own 
eyes, the chief of sinners ? and did not the fact, which 
I, by the Holy Spirit, was enabled to realize for myself, 
pierce and penetrate into the very depths of my soul. 
Had not my own sin, my own base, vile ingratitude 
to Him, who suffered all for mxC, made me the most 
miserable wretch on earth ; and yet had not the love 
of that dying Redeemer, that divine and everliving 
Mediator, filled my heart with joy ? Was ever love 
like thine, most gentle and most gracious Jesus I 






THE PULPIT, 49 



Thou man of sorrows ! Thou, of whom it has been so 
finely said, that " Sorrow was thine element, because 
sin was ours;" it was in this humbled, softened, 
penetrated frame, that I also hung upon the words of 
that most persuasive preacher. 

" Then drew near unto Him," he said^ '' all the 
publicans and sinners for to hear Him." 

^^ Imagine," he added, ''such a congregation as is 
described in these few words. Elsewhere we find 
publicans associated with on-e particular class of sin- 
ners — ' publicans and harlots.' ' All the publicans 
and sinners drew near ' — a company of thieves, 
sabbath-breakers, drunkards, revellers, harlots, the 
refuse of the population of that great city, the very 
dregs of degraded and disgusting humanity^ men and 
women who would have fled with terror from the ap- 
proach of a police officer. Behold, they gather together, 
they collect in groups, they stand, they draw near, 
they hearken to the words of Jesus ! Instead of re- 
pelling such creatures from Him, instead of withdraw- 
ing Himself from such a wretched company, and re- 
ceiving with complacency the more respectable mem- 
bers of the community, behold, He ' receives sinners.' 
Never man recoiled from the touch of contamination 
with such purity as this man : never man was so 
"^ holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,' as 
this man : yet see — ' this man receiveth sinners.' " 
The conclusion of the sermon was extremely touching. 

'' And what a glorious thing it is, my dear breth- 
ren, to set this truth before men — to see the poor 
trembling creatures astonished by the kindness with 
which the gospel addresses them. I have seen such : 
3 



60 THE PULPIT. 



I have seen such persons as are here described, — ' publi- 
cans and sinners/ followed into their haunts of vice by 
a minister of the gospel — not to be upbraided because 
of their transgressions (Ah, he mistakes his office who 
upbraids such sinners !) — but to be addressed with 
kindness, to be astonished by the love and tenderness 
of Christ's ambassador, telling them, ' I did not come 
to find fault with you ; nay, nay, do not mistake me, 
do not be oifended and drive me from your cellar or 
your garret in anger : I came not to reprove your 
vices : nay, I came to tell you that Grod loves you, 
just as you are : He does : He ' so loved ' a world like 
you, that He ' gave His Son to die for it ' : now look 
unto Him: ' believe, and live.' Brethren, I have seen 
many a rugged brow softened by such treatment. I 
have seen many a hardened sinner, ready on the first 
appearance of the visitor to turn away with a harsh- 
ness of spirit that would have revolted from rebuke, 
induced to look up, induced to raise his eyes by a kind 
tone of voice addressed to him, and on seeing a kind 
expression of countenance also, I have seen the tear 
start into that eye unused to weep. I have seen, in 
some of our manufacturing districts, the filthy cheek,* 
where the smoke had been long gathering, and that 
was unused to be w^ashed, furrowed indeed with the 
trickling tears ; I have seen that man relenting under 
the gentle tenderness of a manifesting of Christ's love 
to him and to his family, until to hide his emotion 
under the address of the ministering visitor, he has 
clasped one of his children to his bosom and hid his 
face in his child's clothes, that he might avoid the 
observation of the kind friend who was addressing 



THE PULPIT. 51 



him. Yes, and I have seen a whole family melt with 
tears upon such an occasion ; I have seen the wife's 
ardent anxiety that he might be reclaimed from his 
evil ways, and that the house of Grod, instead of the 
scenes of vice, might be his haunt on the Lord's day. 
I have seen her drop on her knees in a kind of rapture, 
with the instantaneous ejaculation, 'Oh, Grod! hear 
the minister's prayer.' Oh^ we want to multiply such 
scenes as these." 

I have attempted to give some idea of parts of that 
remarkable sermon ; but it is impossible to do justice 
to the simple and t-ouching scene which he brought 
before us ; it was truth, it was nature ; it needed 
nothing, and it would have gained nothing from any 
ornament iof man's eloquence. It was evidently the 
genuine effect produced by the faithful preaching of 
one, who was determined not to know any thing 
among his hearers, save Jesas Christ and him cruci- 
fied ; one who was honored of Grod, because his speech 
and his preaching was not with enticing words of 
man's wisdom ; but in demonstration of the Spirit and 
of power. The love of Christ, shed abroad by the 
Holy Spirit, in his own heart — was the sweet and 
powerful constraint which had urged him to speak of 
that love with such persuasive winningness to the 
hearts of others. 



CHAPTER V. 

GEORGE MANLY. 

I received a strange message one evening — '^ If you 
please, Sir, you must come immediately, for George 
Manly has been and hanged himself." In answer to 
my anxious questioning, I ^vas told, that the poor 
fellow had been discovered in time to save his life, and 
had been cut down. I set off immediately. G-eorge 
Manly dwelt in one of a set of small and miserable 
hovels at the upper end of the town. He was a frank, 
open-hearted man. When almost a youth, he had left 
H — gh, and gone to sea. He had formed an attach- 
ment to a young woman who was then, perhaps, 
modest, and worthy of his affection. But during his 
absence, which lasted several years, she had become 
an abandoned character ; and was, when I knew her, 
a plausible, fawning woman, peculiarly unsuited to 
the plain manly sailor, w^ho had made her his wife. 
His fine intelligent features, and firmly knit frame, 
his kind disposition, and frank address, had, doubtless, 
pleased her ; and, probably, his early recollections led 
him to forgive the life she had led, and to hope the • 
best. But she was idle, bold, and dirty, and was a 
great trial to him. They had been united for some 
years, if one can apply the word united to such a 
marriage. Her temper and her tongue were a perpet- 



GEORGE MANLY. 53 



ual worry to him, and his home was made, by her 
untidy habits, a miserable abode. 

It was in the depth of an unusually severe winter, 
and the poor fellow had been for some time out of work, 
and had suffered much for want of food. He was not 
one to complain of his own wants, and he kept his 
suiferings to himself. His wife and children had food, 
and I fear his privations were little thought of. What 
were the particular acts or words which had driven 
him to the deed of desperation which he had attempted, 
I did not learn, but it seemed that he had been exposed 
to a more than ordinary worry of irritation, his usual 
calmness had given way ; and though half stupified by 
cold and hunger, and his brain confused, his wretched- 
ness had seemed to him beyond endurance ; and, 
weary of his life, he had left her without speaking a 
word in reply, and shut himself up in an empty cham- 
ber, where he was found insensible and aJmost gone. 
But medical aid was near at hand, and life was 
providentially recalled. 

He had retreated from the busy throng of neigh- 
bors, to the room, or rather hovel, consisting of a single 
room, occupied by his wife's sister ; and I knew, 
without being told, that he was there, by a crowd of 
idle boys and girls who were peering in at the windows 
to indulge their curiosity, and stare at the man. I 
drove them all away and opened the door, closing it 
immediately that I might be alone with him. His 
back was turned to me ; he neither moved nor spoke, 
but sat staring vacantly on the wretched fire, like one 
lost in the bewilderment of his own thoughts : and I 
had sat down beside him, and spoken, before he knew 



54 GEORGE MANLV, 



or noticed my entrance. But at the sound of my voice 
he aroused himself and seemed pleased to see me. I 
soon perceived that he was not then in a state to be 
questioned, or spoken to on the awful sin he had 
committed. He was too exhausted both in mind and 
body to bear more than the few kind words which I 
spoke before I left him ; which I did for a very short 
time. I sent immediately to my own house for a 
basket of meat and bread, and some beer ; and when 
my megsenger returned, a table was spread, and he 
and his family, who were all nearly in a famishing 
state, were seated at a comfortable meal. Just as 
they commenced eating, the aged mother of poor 
Greorge Manly, whose weakness and lameness had 
prevented her for years from walking up the street in 
which she lived, came hobbling to the door, supported 
by her stick ; her face wild with horror and anxiety 
from the exaggerated report which had reached her ; 
for she had heard that he had hanged himself, and she 
had not heard that he was still alive. Her joy was 
great, and found relief in tears, at the sight of her 
beloved son; but very naturally, and very injudiciously, 
she began to ask him how he could have done such a 
dreadful thing, till I put a stop to her remonstrances 
and reproaches by leading her to a seat, and setting a 
plate of food before her, and insisting on her eating. 

I stood at the head of the table and distributed the 
meat and bread, and as I looked round upon them, I 
could not help wondering to myself at the appetite of 
the poor old creature, who evidently enjoyed the good 
fare before her. Poor G-eorge was the only one whom 
I was obliged to persuade to eat, but I prevailed with 



GEORGE MANLY, 55 



him, and after he had eaten and drunk, he appeared 
like another creature. One of the chiklren was the 
first to rise from the table, and he went up to his 
mother and whispered something in her ear. She 
however continued eating, and merely shook her head. 
The whispered request—for such it was — was repeated, 
and the child, accustomed to have his own way, and 
to conquer by his teazing importunity — was not to be 
repulsed. At length the woman looked up at me, and 
said with a whining tone, ' the poor child wants his 
kite and he is afraid to go and fetch it, for he left it in 
the room where his poor father hanged himself, but he 
says if it is left there all night the rats will gnaw it : 
but he is afraid to go there by himself.' I saw from 
the look of agony upon the father's face, that his spirit 
winced under his wife's words, and I took the poor 
fellow away to the sister's cabin, where I had found 
him. I closed the door against all intruders. He was 
now able to listen to me, as in a fev/ kind words I 
sought to set before him the awful character of his sin 
in the sight of God. I first led him to converse with 
me on his sea-faring life ; and he listened to me and 
spoke as he had always done on former occasions, with 
respect and attention. The subject I had chosen 
roused and interested him, and in answer to my 
inquiries, he was soon describing to me the perils and 
the escapes of many a stormy night. ^' Had he not," 
I asked, " sometimes almost given himself for lost in 
some tremendous gale V He had. '' Had he not 
worked at the pumps for hours, and climbed the rig- 
ging, and strained every nerve, and made every exer- 
tion that human strength was capable of, in his strug- 



56 GEORGE IMANLT. 



gles to save the life of himself and the lives of those 
around him ?" He had. ^^ Had he never thanked 
God when the storm was over, and the ship no longer 
pitched and reeled in the maddened element, and the 
sea no longer brdve over her, and the lovely light of 
the morning returned, and all danger was over ?" He 
had. '"And for what had he thus toiled and strug- 
gled ? Was it not for that very life which His great 
and gracious Grod has so often, and so mercifully 
spared ? And now what had he been doing on shore ^ 
when safe from every danger ; what but yielding like 
a coward to the h*oubles which that same gracious God 
had sent to try him ; and owing to the words of a weak 
and teazing woman's voice, given himself over to de- 
spair. Had he not been throwing away the life, not 
only of his body, but of his immartal soul — that body^ 
and that soul, for which his Saviour bled, and suffered, 
and died ? Had he not indeed been wantonly throw- 
ing away that very life which, when in peril, had 
appeared to him so precious, that he had put forth 
every power which God had given him, to save it?" 
The poor fellow felt keenly the force of this argument, 
and deeply humbled, and contrite for the sin which he 
had committed — to which his eyes were now clearly 
opened, he confessed with tears, his guilt and his 
ingratitude. Together we knelt down to ask God to 
pardon, for our blessed Redeemer's sake, his grievous 
offence, and to thank Him for that mercy by which 
he had been so graciously spared from the crime of 
self-murder. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PENITENCE. 

" Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler, the snajre 
is broken, and we are delivered." Psalm cxxiv. 7. 

'^ One shall be taken, and the other left." Such was 
the declaration of our Lord. Such is the fact with 
regard to the state of many, nay, of all ; for the lost 
and the saved make up but two parties. We have 
individual instances of this which aro too remarkable 
to be passed over. The following is one — it appears 
to me of peculiar interest. 

There was a young man in H — gh, to whose bed-side 
I was called. He was very ill, and suffering intense 
pain from some affliction of the limbs, which confined 
him to his bed. I did not go to him, for I could not; 
i had gone to visit another sick person. A very dear 
friend, a brother minister, was staying with me at the 
time, and hearing the message that was sent to me, 
he set off, without delay, to visit the sick man, kindly 
taking my place. It was a bleak, dark night, at the 
beginning of spring, and he groped his way down a 
narrow alley to the miserable hovel, a single room on 
the ground-floor, in the yard at the end of the alley. 
There lay the wretched man on the bed, from which 
he was never to rise, attended by his wife, the 
person who had brought the message. They were 
persons of bad character, in the very depths of poverty, 
3* 



58 PENITENCE. 



and they had sent for me, hoping, naturally enough, 
to obtain food and money. There was, alas, no desire 
for spiritual instruction, no thirst for spiritual conso- 
lation. The beloved friend who visited them, was a 
faithful servant of our blessed Lord, a man of pecu- 
liar gentleness ; but plain, searching and uncompro- 
mising in his dealings with those whom he thus visited ; 
kind even to tenderness to the sinner, but unsparing 
to the sin. He felt deeply for the distress and suffer- 
ing which he witnessed, but far more deeply for the 
ignorance and unconcern of the poor sufferer. From 
that night he was a constant attendant beside the 
pallet of the sick man. I also went, but less frequent- 
ly, for Vv^e looked upon the man as his special charge, 
and I had too many other sick persons to visit in that 
large and crowded parish not to avail myself gladly of 
his valuable assistance. There he passed many an 
anxious hour, reading the word of life to that unhappy, 
but utterly careless man, stating w^ith great plainness 
of speech the only way of salvation through the blood 
of our Divine Redeemer, entreating him with all 
affection and earnestness to receive the message of 
His wonderful love ; praying beside him that he might 
be brought to know his own vile and sinful state be- 
fore God, and to seek for pardon and acceptance through 
our Lord Jesus Christ. The bodily wants of the 
wretched couple were supplied, and their comfort at- 
tended to from that night. 

But all our efforts, so far as we could judge, were 
unavailing. The poor man died after a few weeks, — 
which might have proved a season of great blessedness to 
him — in the same ungodly unconcern in which he lived. 



PENITENCE, 59 



But the word of G-od does not return to him void, 
« — it invariably prospers in that to which He sends it. 
The seed which sometimes seems to fall by the way- 
side, has been found to have fallen into the honest and 
good ground, that is, into a heart prepared by the 
great husbandman of spiritual things, to receive it. 
Such was the case on this occasion. It happened that 
a few days after the first visit of my brother minister, 
I received a message from a young woman, who, I 
was told, intreated me to come to her. I learnt that 
she was a poor unhappy girl of abandoned character 
' — one who had forsaken the path of modesty ; but I 
did not hesitate to go to her. I found that her lodging 
was a small room, the door of which opened into the 
entrance of the same alley, at the end of which we had 
found the sick man before mentioned. She was look- 
ing anxiously for ray coming, yet ashamed to see me. 
On entering the small mean chamber, I saw a young 
girl of pleasing appearance and gentle manners. She 
said but little at first, but the tears trickled down her 
face, as with a trembling voice she timidly spoke of 
her mode of life, and explained to me her reason in 
asking me to come to her. It seemed that on the eve- 
ning when my friend had gone to visit her sick neigh- 
bor, her door had been partly open, and she had seen 
him pass by on his v/ay thither. She had perhaps been 
struck by his appearance, and by the circumstance of 
his coming thither at that late hour ; and after vratch- 
ing his steps till the door of the hovel at the end of the 
alley closed upon him, impelled by idle curiosity, she 
had stolen to the door, and stood there to listen, in order 
to discover the object of his visit. There she stood, the 



60 PEXITEXCE. 

unseen hearer of all that he said. There she continued 
standing, for ?he felt that she coalJ not leave the spot, 
while those affecting words sounded in her ears, and 
sunk into her heart. He spoke of the vile and sinful 
heart of every fallen creature, and she felt that he de- 
scribed her own heart. He spoke of the state and the 
doom of the lost sinner, and she felt that he was speak- 
ing of her own lost state. He dwelt on the love of 
Christ to the wretched sinner, and of his porwer and 
willingness to forgive the very chief of sinners, and she 
felt that there was hope — some faint, sweet hope— of 
forgiveness, even for such a wretch as she knew herself 
to be, AVhen he rose up to depart, she fled back with 
quick and noiseless steps to her own poor chamber, to 
weep in agony over her own sin, and to pray for that 
forgiveness of which she had then first heard. But 
again and again she watched for his coming ; and 
whenever he came, she folloAved to the door of the sick 
room, and there took her stand, listening with intense 
and eager attention to every word of his kind earnest 
voice. But she did not send for him, nor did she ever, 
I believe, exchange a word with bim. 

It was an affecting sight to see in that young 
heart-broken girl, the same spirit as that of the gaoler 
of Philippi, when he came trembling— when he said,- 
'^ Sirs, what must I do to bo saved ?'' That change^ 
which is as life from the dead, had, I trnst, been 
^^TOught in her ; and He vrho had begrzn the wondrous 
work, gave her more grace to enable her to stand firm 
and faithful to Him. She never went back, nor looked 
back. Poor girl I she had been the victim of a profli- 
gate man, in whose service her mother had been living 



PENITENCE. 61 



as housekeeper, and in whose household she had also 
served. She v/as then a child of fifteen. But the 
heartless brute had soon forsaken her, and she had 
shared the common fate of such victims, and had at 
length taken her place among the poor despised pros- 
titutes of the common street. Ellen T— — , v^as 
scarcely nineteen when I first saw her, and still re« 
tained her youthful bloom, for she had not yet suffered 
from want or sickness. She had begun, however, to 
look with loathing and disgust upon her way of living* 
She entreated me to place her, if possible, in the ser- 
vice of some respectable family— but I was obliged to 
tell her plainly, that she must not expect to be re-- 
ceived into any family, without a character. I spoke 
to her of a well-known and blessed asylum in London, 
for penitents like herself, and she earnestly implored 
me to obtain admittance for her there. I wrote with- 
out loss of time to the excellent matron, and begged 
that her case might be submitted to the committee* 
While waiting for a reply to my application, I sought 
out her mother, who had unwillingly, it seemed, given 
her up as a lost creature ; and I wrote to her only 
brother, who was a soldier, and absent with his regi- 
ment in another part of England. From her mother, 
and not from herself — for she said little on the subject 
—•I learnt the sad story of her seduction. She gladly 
concurred with me in my plan for her daughter's im- 
mediate removal from H ^gh. 

I was struck by the readiness which the poor girl 
showed to follow my advice even on points which were 
comparatively of slight importance. I had spoken, on 
one occasion, on the impropriety of her style of dress, 



62 PKNtTE^'CE. 



particularly the loose and flaunting sleeves, and the 
rows of beads that she wore. The next time I saw 
her, she was wearing an old dress of the commonest 
description, and was busily employed vrith her scissors 
and needle in altering her gown to the plain fashion 
of modest women in her sphere of life. The rows of 
beads had also disappeared. She went to the Female 
Penitentiary at Pentonville, and there I sometimes vi- 
sited her. Her conduct, while there, was irreproach- 
able ; and at the expiration of the usual sojourn of two 
years in the institution, she was placed in service in 
the family of a highly respectable tradesman in Lon- 
don. Her master and mistress were an elderly cou- 
ple — pious, kind-hearted persons, who kept no other 
servant. They took a real interest in her welfare, and 
they treated her rather as their child than as a servant. 
It was three or four years from the time of her 
leaving the penitentiary. I v\'as in London, and when 
passing through AVells Street from Oxford Street, a 
young woman suddenly crossed the street and seized 
my hand, expressing, with hurried words, and smiling 
looks, her joy at meeting me again. I stared with 
astonishment at the extraordinary greeting of the 
stranger, for such she seemed to me. I saw before me 
a person, whose sweet and modest countenance, and 
quiet style of dress, vrere very pleasing, but of whom 
I had no recollection; but before I could tell her that 
she had made some mistake, an' I that I was not the 
friend she took me for, my name was on her lips, and 

she said, she found I had forgotten poor Ellen T . 

She told me that she was the happy vdfe of an honest, 
excellent young man — a journeyman in the employ- 



PENITENCE. 63 



ment of her dear master and mistressj that she had 
been married two years, and that there could not be a 
kinder, better husband, than her's. They were well 
off in the world, she said, for his earnings were thirty 
shillings a week, and he was a sober, industrious 
man. My delight was now, perhaps, as great as that 
of poor Ellen's. I felt but one drawback, the fear that 
Jier husband had not been made acquainted with her 
former mode of life ; but this fear was soon removed^ 
Every thing had been honestly told him before she 
had accepted his offer of marriage. 

It was not many weeks after the departure of 

Ellen T « from her native town for the Penitentiary 5 

that on coming out of H — >gh Church one mornings 
after soma occasional service, I found another young 
woman of the same class waiting to speak to me in 
the church-yard. Her looks were bold, and her man- 
ner abrupt, but she seemed in earnest, when she asked 
if I would send her up to the place where Ellen was. 
She wished, she told me, to lead a new life, and to get 
away from her bad companions. My mind misgave 
me, not as to her sincerity, but I could not help fearing 
that the good purposes of the present time might not 
stand. I could not feel exactly satisfied, and yet I 
could not think that I should do well to refuse her 
what she asked. I found hovv^ever, on applying to the 
Penitentiary at Pentonville, that there was no vacancy 
for her at that time, but I was recommended to seek 
admission for her at another excellent asylum — " The 
Gruardian." 

After much serious and searching conversation — 
warning her against taking so important a step in her 



64 PENITENCE. 



own strength, or in lightness of mind — I agreed to 
send her there. She was indeed fnlly bent on going, 
and she Went, and Was admitted. I was not surprized 
some short time after, on hearing from the matron, 
that Ann was unsettled and wished to leave the 
asylum, and that though they were desirous to be- 
friend her, the commxittee could not detain her against 
her will, or permit her, by staying, to unsettle the 
other young women. A letter came also from Ann to 
me, filled with complaints of her unhappiness, and 
anxiety to return to H =-gh. 

I thought of her with a heavy heart. My hopes 
of her reformation had been faint from the first, but 
now they died away ; I began to look upon her return 
to her former sinful life as a settled thing, and I feared 
that her last state W*ould be worse than her first. 

How wonderful are the ways of Q-od ! Another 
letter came from her. She had become a new creature. 
I wish I could find that letter, I have it still, but it 
has been mislaid, and I cannot attempt to recall the 
artless language in which she wrote. She told me 
that on the last Lord's day, she had assembled with 
the other inmates of the asylum for the services of the 
day ; she Vv^as in her usual cold and dissatisfied state. 
But the sermon of the chaplain had gone to her heart, 
and she wrote as one whose spirit was totally changed. 
She no longer wished to leave the shelter of the quiet 
home to which she had been admitted, but entreated 
to be permitted to remain. She had become deeply 
sensible of her own sinfulness, and of the advantages 
she enjoyed ; and her heart was fall of thankfulness 
to her Grod, and to her true friends. There she did 



PENITENCE. 65 



remain one of its humblest and most pious inmates. 
I saw her once again, but she never came back to her 
native town. An arrangement had been made by 
G-overnment, to send out a certain number of young 
women to Yan Diemen's land, to be engaged as female 
servants to the colonists on their arrival there. A 
selection was made from " The G-uardian," of the 
most respectable of its inmates, and the offer was set 

before them. Ann K earnestly requested to be 

allowed to make one of the party, and she wrote to me 
to ask my approval, and to beg that I would inform 
her relations, that she hoped to be chosen to accompa- 
ny the young women who were about to sail for Yan 
Diemen's Land, and if chosen, that she had decided 
to go. I was shocked to find that her aunt and uncle 
determined to do every thing in their power to prevent 
her going. They wrote to her, and she sent me their 
letter. It was a strange production, and in it they 
urged upon her every reason they could imagine to 
dissuade her from her purpose. Among others, I re- 
member, they informed her that the ground of that 
foreign land, was covered with nothing but snakes and 
brambles. But they were not satisfied with writing, 
they determined to go up to London, and bring her 
back with them. To this Ann at first strongly objec- 
ted. She dreaded their influence upon herself, and 
she feared lest they should conduct themselves in an 
unbecominsf manner towards her beloved friends at the 
institution. 

" Let them come, Sir," she said, afterwards, in a 
letter to me, ^'I would wish them to come. They 
will not perhaps believe that I really wisli to go, till 



66 PENITENCE. 



they hear it from my own lips ; and I shall have an 
opportunity — the last and only one I may ever have 
— to speak to them about their own state — let them 
come, if you please, and let them see me." They 
did go — but notwithstanding all their arguments to 
the contrary — Ann resolutely refused to see them 
except in the presence of the matron ; and then with 
much affection and meekness, but with great plainness 
of speech, she told them what Grod had done for her 
own soul, and she entreated them to pray for grace 
in the name of her blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, that 
they might be enabled to turn from their evil ways, 
and to become as happy as she was, in believing that 
Grod had for Christ's sake, forgiven her all her sins, 
and washed her in the precious blood of His own Son. 
They were persons of loose character, and their chief 
objection, it was feared, was, tliat having shared in 
the profits of the prostitution of poor Ann and her 
younger sister — the hope of their gains would be 
partly gone if Ann left the country, and if her refor- 
mation continued. Her sister, who afterwards sent for 
me when in a dangerous illness, appeared, while her ill- 
ness lasted, to be a broken-hearted penitent ; but she 
recovered to sink to lower depths of sin and profligacy, 
and I often saw her flaunting about the streets in open 
day, her bold but handsome features brightened with 
rouge, and her fine person decked out in the gayest 
silks and other ornaments. 

Ann sailed for Van Diemen's land, and we heard 
of her arrival, and of her marriage to a respectable 
farmer with some property there. 

Before the ship sailed from these shores, the party 



PENITENCE. 67 



of young women, of whom Ann was one, were visited 
by a christian gentleman who was much interested in 
the scheme of sending them out as emigrants ; he was 
brother-in-law to the admirable Mrs. Fry. '' He wrote 
to me," as he said, " at the particular request of a 

young woman named Ann K , late of H — gh, who 

begged him to inform me of her happy state of mind, 
and to thank me again and again for my kindness to 
her;" and he added, ^^that he could not refrain from 
letting me know, how much he had been struck by 
the sweet and modest propriety of this young woman, 
whose very countenance seemed to reflect the inward 
peace which G-od had given her." It was a marvel- 
lous change ! but the ways of our Grod are always 
marvels of goodness, and power, and grace. I could 
scarcely have believed in the change, except on such 
testimony, for, as I have before said, the countenance 
of poor Ann had once been remarkable for its bold and 
even bad expression. 



CHAPTER VIL 

THE TEACIll^R TAUGHT. 

" There was much that was very good in that ser- 
mon," said a friend of mine, as we walked home from 
church. " The views of the preacher, as to doctrine, 
are defective, but he is evidently in earnest. It would 
be well for that young clergyman, if some good Aquila 
or Priscilla were to take him and expound unto him 
the way of Grod more perfectly." My friend was a 
layman, but he spoke in kindness, Avilling to approve 
all that was really commendable in the preacher. He 
was, though a layman, far better acquainted with the 
divine truths of the gospel than the man under whose 
teachings he had been sitting. Such a fact may not 
be allowed in the present day, by some who seem to 
suppose that there is necessarily some mysterious 
infallibility conferred by the mere ordination and office 
of a clergyman ; but the assumption is apt to be de- 
nied by those who excel as much in vital godliness, as 
in true wisdom. The truth is, tliat our church gains 
nothing by such assumptions. The breath of her real 
life is not in her forms, but in the identity of her doc- 
trines with the pure word of God, and the faithfulness 
of her ministers to those doctrines. If the preacher is 
one who rightly divides the word of truth, and thus 
proves himself to be a well-instructed scribe, giving to 
every one of his hearers their portion of meat in due 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 69 

seasoiij his authority is unquestionable, and his ser- 
mons must tend to edification. But if his views are 
confused, and if his statements want the fulness, and 
the strength of body, belonging to the new wine of the 
gospel, it is well for his hearers that they should be 
men, who like the Bereans of old — search the Scrip- 
tures daily, that they may learn whether the words of 
the preacher are in agreement with the word of the 
Lord Grod. It is well for him also, if there be found 
among those hearers, some who may, with the meek- 
ness of wisdom, stand to him instead of an Aquila and 
Priscilla. It was well for Apollos, " an eloquent man, 
and mighty in the Scriptures," that there were found 
among his hearers, those godly and faithful persons, 
who, while they were willing to hear him, were both 
willing and able, to take him unto them, and out of 
the riches of their own clear and experimental knowl- 
edge of the truth as it is in Jesus, to expound unto 
him the way of God more perfectly. And yet Apollos 
appears to have been by office, a preacher of the gospel ; 
and his instructors were, one of them a woman ; and 
both of them by their occupation, it would seem, mere 
tent-makers. I am well aware that it may be object- 
ed, that every Jew was obliged to learn a trade, and 
that the great apostle Paul, was himself of the same 
craft, and on that account abode with them, and 
wrought with them as a tent-maker. But it appears 
to me, on a careful consideration of the passages, in 
which these holy persons are mentioned, that their 
calling was not that of preachers ; but that they were 
simply, like many of the pious laity of the present 
day, thoroughly instructed, under the teaching of the 



70 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 



Spirit and the written word, in the way of godliness ; 
and even if it were granted that Aquila had received 
a commission from the Lord to preach the gospel, this 
could not apply to Priscilla, and yet they are spoken 
of together as the joint instructors of Apollos. 

I speak the more feelingly, on this subject, because 
I have myself experienced the benefit of such godly 
counsel. I record with much pleasure, a debt of grati- 
tude, which I owe to one, who in the early days of 
my own ministry, had the faithfulness to take me 
aside, and in a spirit of affection and meekness, spoke 
to me of a vital defect in my preaching. " You preach 
Christ crucified to us, Sir," he said, '' with plainness. 
You preach Christ as our only Redeemer, and show 
us that there is salvation in no other. You set Him 
forth as being the wisdom of Grod and as the power of 
God unto salvation, to every one that believeth — but 
there you stop — you stop short, and leave us without 
a word of that doctrine which can alone teach us how 
the preaching of Christ crucified is to be realized and 
applied. You say nothing to us of God the Holy 
Spirit, by whose influences God the Son is really made 
the power of God unto salvation to our souls, for ' no 
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy 
Ghost.'" I recall, as far as I am able to do so at this 
distance of time, those faithful words. 1 cannot say 
that I was altogether pleased with that excellent friend 
at the time. I was young, and youth is often self- 
confident and impatient of reproof; but his words 
were the truth, and could not be gainsayed. They 
sunk into my heart, for they commended themselves 
to my conscience. I have never forgotten, I trust, 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 71 

the impression which, under G-od, they made upon 
me, and that impression has not only been abiding, 
but has deepened with every year that has passed. 
Those to whom I have been permitted to preach the 
unsearchable riches of Christ, have I trust, experi- 
enced the benefit of that true friend's counsel to his 
minister. Alas, the truth of his assertion may be 
seen too often in the pages of some of our popular ser- 
mons, published twenty years ago ; and I fear that in 
the preaching of some excellent men at the present 
day, it will also be found, that on this point a sermon 
which might be unexceptionable in other respects, is 
sadly defective ; and yet we are living under what 
may be termed especially the dispensation of the Holy 
Spirit; and are required so to preach Christ crucified 
that we may do so ^^ in demonstration of the Spirit 
and of power " 

But useful as the admonition of a Chistian friend 
may be, who speaks with the wisdom and the faithful 
affection of an Aquila, there is a higher teaching than 
that of man, which every minister must seek, and re- 
ceive, if he would himself attain to a vital apprehen- 
sion of the doctrines which he is commissioned to 
preach. His confidence must not be with flesh and 
blood, but with the Lord G-od. In the light which the 
Holy Spirit reveals, and the power which the Holy 
Spirit imparts, he must see and he must preach the 
doctrines and the precepts of the inspired word. 

'' I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was 
preached of me is not after man, for neither was I 
taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. But 
when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me, that I 



72 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 



might preach Hirn among (men) immediately, I con- 
ferred not with flesh and blood." How heartily do I 
respond to these inspired words of the illustrious 
Apostle ! I am deeply convinced that the humblest, as 
well as the highest, minister of the gospel of the grace 
of God, must learn, and can only learn, how to obtain 
wisdom for the instruction and edification of his own 
soul, and how to preach for the instruction and edifi- 
cation of the souls of the flock committed to his charge, 
through this inward revelation spoken of by the 
Apostle. It is a subject of heartfelt thankfulness to 
me, to have been thus enabled to receive and to ex- 
pound to others the vital doctrines of the inspired word, 

I well remember the way in which, for some 
considerable time, I perverted the great doctrine of 
justification — the unscriptural way, in which, after 
setting forth that doctrine in the words of the Holy 
Scriptures, I marred and spoiled the simple grandeur 
of the doctrine as it stands in the Scriptures, by my 
explanations and attempted corrections of, what then 
appeared to me, its dangerous tendencies. I was, alas, 
profanely attempting to be wiser than the wisdom of 
God! 

I well remember also — it was at R y, — my 

state of mind, when I discovered the awful mistake 
I had made, and the perplexity, amounting even to 
agony of mind, in which I continued for many, many 
days, till I was graciously enabled to apprehend the 
truth as it is in Jesus. 

I turned over rapidly or slowly the pages of many 
volumes, for instruction on this point of almost para- 
mount importance. I pored into them. I devoured 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 73 

them with avidity. I saw the doctrine plainly stated 
in words which are now~ easy of comprehension ; but 
the veil was upon my heart — I could comprehend 
nothing. I knew that I was wrong, and that those 
statements were right ; but I could not, and I did not 
receive them. At last, on my knees, with my bible 
open before me — my eyes blinded at times with tears 
- — my heart full to agony, praying earnestly and 
unceasingly to the Lord G-od for light, waiting upon 
the Lord for His teaching, observing Sir Isaac 
Newton's celebrated rule in his philosophical discove- 
ries — that is, keeping the subject ever before me — 
considering it quietly, thoughtfully, patiently — at last 
I repeat, after many days, this great and vital doctrine 
seemed as it were, to emerge in the clear brightness 
of Divine illumination, upon the darkness of my mind ; 
and I saw it in all its glorious simplicity. From that 
time it has seemed to me easy of comprehension, so 
easy, that I have felt that the faith of a little child 
might receive it ; and truly it is this child-like dispo- 
sition of mind, this child -like and confiding faith that 
he needs, who would receive, and does receive this 
great doctrine — ^this ^^test of a standing or a falling 
ministry." Thus I was enabled to receive and to 
embrace it, and to preach it, even as I had been taught. 
And now I wonder not, though I grieve, when I see 
the remarks which I too often meet with, on this great 
and fundamental doctrine, in the volumes of some 
highly educated men, clergymen who have gone over 
to that corrupt Church where this doctrine is not 
taught, but formally rejected and denied. 

It may be useful to others to mention here, that 
4 



74 THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 

after I had been thus enabled to comprehend and em- 
brace the doctrine of justification by faith, those book» 
in which I found most edification, after the word of 
God, were '' Hopkins on the Covenants," " Witsius on 
the Covenants/' and Hooker's " Sermon on Justifica- 
tion," to which I may add a volume of Mr. Simeon's-^ 
given to me by that excellent man himself, and highly 
valued by me, not only for its contents, but for the 
donor's sake. With reference to this doctrine of Jus- 
tification by Faith, I could easily bring forward an il- 
lustration, proving that so far from tending, as its 
unscriptural objectors might assert, to licentiousness, 
it is the one great incentive nnta practical godliness^. 
But I cannot feel at liberty, out of regard for the living, 
to speak of its influence upon the life and the happi- 
ness of one who received it in all its scriptural entire- 
ness, a short time previous to the termination of his 
miortal course, a course of singular uprightness and 
moral loveliness. He found that a life, which has ap- 
peared almost blameless ta ethers, wa& unable to afford 
him any solid peace by its retrospect : and it was not 
until divinely taught, that we are justified freely by 
His grace through faith which is in Christ Jesus, that 
he had peace v/ith God, and was enabled to depart in 
perfect peace, every doubt removed, and all fear ex- 
changed, for the full assurance of hope. 

The importance of the doctrine of Justification 
by faith only, can scarcely be too highly estimated in 
these present times ; first, because it is peculiarly the 
great and essential doctrine of the dispensation under 
which we live ; because also it is the prominent doc- 
trine which marks the wide distinction between ths 



THE TEACHER TAUGHT. 75 



Romanist party and all Protestant churches ; and 
lastly, because this was the doctrine plainly set forth 
by the great Apostle, in those remarkable words, ^'Be- 
lieve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved^"^^ when he gave that authoritative answer to 
the demand of an alarmed conscience, earnestly desiring 
to be satisfied upon the only subject that an alarmed 
conscience feels to be of any importance, that is, the 
answer made by G-od's ambassadors to a sinner, who 
in an agony of newly-awakened terror for his soul, 
demands of them, '•' WJiat must I do to be saved ? " 

* The Bishop of Ossorj's Sermons on Justification by Faith only. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

Where we meet with much prejudice against any 
thing that is good, we may take it for granted that 
there is much ignorance on the subject. Ignorance 
may, in fact, be termed the mother of prejudice. I 
v/eli remember my own vague notions on the subject 
of missions and missionary societies, and the opinions 
which I presumed to hold, and sometimes to hold 
forth, when first I entered the ministry. A strange, 
"Unsubstantial vision, sometimes floated across my 
brain of a set of poor narrow-minded fanatics ; men 
of inferior education, and vulgar manners — ^half hypo- 
crites, and half bigots, whose objects were chimerical; 
and whose language was cant — who were expending 
other people^s money to engage in a work in which it 
was impossible for any man to succeed : but which 
God could alone undertake, and would accomplish in 
his own time — a work with Avhich / could have noth- 
ing to do. These notions were strengthened from 
time to time by the observations I was accustomed to 
bear from men whom I met with in society, gentle- 
men of intelligence and education ; urbane and even 
courteous when speaking on worldly subjects ; but 
sarcastic even to bitterness on the question of missions 
and missionaries. How often^ for instance, have I 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 77 

heard the remark made by clear-headed, sensible men 
at my father's table, that not a convert had ever been 
made to Christianity, and that not a convert ever 
woLild be made ; that there w^ere, indeed, a low, mise- 
rable set, a sprinkling here and there of natives who 
had no caste, and no character, and who had con- 
formed to Christianity only for what they could get 
by it. If an objection were raised, or a question were 
asked, which implied a doubt as to the correctness of 
their conclusions, this would be the answer : ^' Sir, I 
have been in India, and I speak of what I know." I, 
for my part, heard these remarks with little or no in- 
terest at the time ; but they insensibly acquired an 
influence over my mind, and, if I could be said to 
form an opinion at all on such matters, I should say 
that I condemned and despised everything connected 
with missionary enterprises. The delusion was not 
dispelled when, a youth of eighteen, and about to go 
up to college, I had the privilege of an interview with 
a truly eminent missionary. My father told me one 
evening, that he had made an engagement for me to 
call on the following morning upon Dr. Buchanan. 
^'He has promised me," said my father, '' to examine 
you, and to give you some advice respecting your col- 
lege life." I was anything but pleased to hear of this 
engagement ; but my father was not one to be diso- 
obeyed, and I went, though with an unwilling mind. 
I shall never forget the impression which I received 
of the meek and holy wisdom of that devoted servant 
of Christ in that one short interview. I was aston- 
ished by the simplicity and the sweetness of his man- 
ners. His gentleness and kindness won their way to 



78 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

my heart, and disarmed all my prejudices. The only 
examination to which I was subjected proved rather 
pleasant than otherwise. He opened a Grreek Testa- 
ment, and asked me to read a few verses, on w^hich he 
made some short and applicable remarks. I came 
away, feeling that I had been with no common man : 
and I have never since heard his name without feel- 
ing my heart warm to it. I knew so little however 
about missionaries at that time, that I was not even 
aware that Dr. Buchanan was one, and my prejudices, 
born, as I said before, all such prejudices are, of a 
most stupid ignorance, continued in full force. "VYell 
do I remember, and I recal it to my shame, the first 
missionary meeting I ever attended. It was held in 
the theatre at the well-known village of Barnwell, in 
the outskirts of Cambridge. Such was the prejudice 
at that time — about thirty-three years ago — against 
that noble-minded servant of God, the late Mr. Simeon, 
that w^hen the placard announcing the missionary 
meeting appeared, a hand-bill w^as also circulated, 
headed, if I remember, thus : 

'' ®l}eatre, Sarntodl 



THE COMEDY OF 

THE HYPOCRITE. 

The part of Dr. Cantwell, by the Rev. Mr. Simeon, of King*s Colleg'e. 

Mawworm, by the Rev. Mr. , of Queen's College." 

<tc. &c. cfcc. 

I went with a companion, not altogether with the 
avowed intention of ridiculing the proceedings of the 
meeting ; but with our minds quite awake to the 
perception of any thing which we might, in our foolish 
and profane presumption, deem absurd. We took 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 79 

possession of a private box immediate^ over one of 
the stage-doors ; and there, behind the gilded lattice- 
work, we listened to the addresses of the excellent men 
who conducted the meeting ; and there our whispered 
repartees passed from one to the other during the whole 
^^f that meeting; and there we laughed together at 
statements which, if I were to hear them now, would 
make my heart sv/ell with emotion, and fill my eyes 
with tears. Our senseless ridicule was chiefly directed 
against three men whose names are not only in the 
churches, but are doubtless written in heaven. Against 
one of the number, because ke was a man of stam- 
mering lips, and slow speech — against another, who 
was a missionary lately returned from Western Africa ; 
and against Mr. Simeon himself^ whose warm and 
glowing heart was full to overflowing, with love and 
Eeal in the glorious cause which they had come to 
advocate. Not many years after, I learned, I thank 
Ood, to appreciate the character of that remarkable 
man, to whom the University of Cambridge owes more, 
perhaps, than to any individual, whose name has 
adorned its annals. I have since often wondered at 
the bitterness of spirit which the mere mention of the 
subject of missiGns has elicited in persons, accustomed 
to pay, at least, anbutv/ard reverence to Divine things ; 
and could only attribute their virulent opposition to an 
'^ignorance as inexcusable as deplorable, in persons 
bearing the name of Christian: for what was the 
coming of our Lord from h^^aven to earth, but the 
mission of a Divine Messenger, not merely to one 
tieathen lard, but to an entire world lying in darkness, 
and dead in sin. And I have often thought, when 



80 mSSIONS A\D ^^SSION'ARV SOCIETIES. 



observing the unconcern, or the contempt, with which 
the records of missionary exertion are regarded by 
very many^ that it would be well to remind such 
persons, that the book of the Acts of the Apostles is to 
all intents and purposes a missionary report. Objec- 
tors to missionary meetings might, in like manner, be 
reminded that they are solemnly rebuked in those 
inspired pages, by the practice of the first devoted 
followers of our blessed Lord. TVe read in the 14th 
of Acts, that on the return of Paul and Barnabas from 
the missionary journey, on which they had been sent 
forth by God the Holy G-host, — on their coming to 
Antioch, ''from whence they had been recommended 
to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled 
— when they were come, they gathered the church 
together, and they rehearsed all that Grod had done 
with them, and how He had opened the door of faith 
to the G-entiles.^' And thus we find also in the 21st 
of Acts, James and the elders of the church at Jerusa- 
lem, on PauPs return to that city from another mis- 
sionary voyage, saying to him, as if it were a thing of 
course that it should be so, ''the multitude must 
needs come together, far they will hear that thou art 
come." But every objector is at once silenced, and the 
matter set at rest for ever, by the parting words of the 
Lord Jesus himself, when He leaves this command, 
which was implicitly obeyed by the faithful men, 
whose missions are afterwards recorded. " Gro ye 
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
creature." This command must first be revoked before 
the imperative duty incumbent upon every christian 
church can be set aside. 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 81 

I fully agree with Dr. Chalmers, that next to the 
direct preaching of the gospel, the most effect aal 
means, nnder the blessing of G-od, which a Christian 
pastor can use to awaken a vital interest in the souls 
of ^ 'his people concerning their own personal salvation, 
is to bring before them constantly, the report of 
Christian missions in heathen lands. Let this be done 
judiciously, and by one who himself feels the deep 
importance of such labors ; and it is next to impossible 
but that they will be led to feel for the eternal welfare 
both of themselves and others. Their ignorance on 
such subjects will, in spite of themselves, be removed ; 
and then their prejudices must fall. I shall not soon 
forofet the astonishuient and deli«:ht of two excellent 
sisters, ladies of a middle age, on their attending for a 

first time a missionary meeting in the town of F -; 

their newly-awakened emotions, and their expressions 
of surprise and admiration at all they heard ; and their 
sincere regret that so lengthened a portion of their 
lives had passed away, without their having had a 
conception that such events were passing in far distant 
heathen lands. The mind of the follower of Christ is, 
alas, too often oocupied by the reports of scientific 
researches, and various other topics in foreign lands, 
when its first inquiry should be ; Has the Bible been 
'^ent thither ? Has the gospel been preached ? Has 
the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, yet dis- 
pelled the gloom of the thick darkness natural to the 
heathen mind, purified the heart from its natural 
corruptions, gladdened the spirit of the fallen creature 
with the knowledge of the way of life? Has the 
gospel given the unsearchable riches of Christ, in the 



82 mSSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

place of the deplorable poverty of spiritual ignorance, 
and caused the desert to blossom as the rose ? Such 
inquiries are worthy the attention of immortal beings ! 
They enlarge the intellect, and ennoble the character. 
But alas, we see too often the energies of the mind 
wasting themselves upon subjects of comparative 
insignificance ; and the taste perverted by pursuits 
unworthy of immortal creatures, I have never met 
with statements so deeply affecting, or descriptions so 
truly sublime, as those which I have sometimes found 
under the despised cover of a missionary report. 

The declaration of the inspired Apostle, that— 
'' The salvation of God is sent nnto the Gentiles^ 
and they will hear iV^ — Acts xxviii. 28 ; is too often 
forgotten by those w^ho profess to be faithful and 
obedient to the Redeemer whose name they bear, and 
to that church, which, if really a christian church, 
must bear the distinct character of a missionary 
church. The whole world is, in fact, but as one wide- 
spread field — from every portion of which they that 
are themselves the redeemed of the Lord, hear the 
voices of perishing, but immortal beings, calling unto 
them ; '^ Come over and help us :'' that field is white 
already to the harvest ; and we are called upon, by 
our Divine Redeemer, who now speaks to us from 
heaven, to ^' pray to the Lord of the harvest that He 
will send forth laborers into His harvest," and to pro- 
mote by every means in our power the cause of mis- 
sions. If we turn to the annals of missionary labor, 
we find also great encouragement from the past 
triumphs of the gospel, in many of the dark places of 
the earth, to conclude that like successes shall still 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCmTlES- 83 

attend like exertions— But after all, success is not the 
criterion of duty.. 

If, as in the case of Hans Egede, in opening up 
the soil of G-reenlandj for the seed of Grod's word, the 
life of the Missionary may pass away without his 
being permitted to behold a single convert as th^ fruit 
of his unremitting labors, still the parting commission 
^f the Lord Jesus Christ stands in all the sacredness 
of a command, which is enduring as the earth itself — 
always to be obeyed while there is one faithful^ loving 
disciple on the earth to receive it. 

And yet a large portion of the christian world are 
entirely ignorant of the work that has been done, and 
is still progressing under the manifest grace and bless- 
ing of the Lord, in heathen lands. How often have I 
seen not only a frown of disapproval, but a sneer of 
€ontempt, upon many a benevolent countenance — if 
the subject of christian missions has been introduced I 
But I have heard also remarks, wearying from their 
very staleness, from the lips of those vs^ho can converse 
sensibly enough on other topics ! A plain statement 
of facts is at once the best argument, and the best 
ansv/er for such opposers. Few of our congregations 
in civilized and christianized England, could furnish 
instances of conversion so remarkable, and proofs of 
conversion so satisfactory, as the two following ac- 
counts. 

When Brainerd preached and labored among the 
savages of North America^ '' an old Indian conjuror, a 
murderer, and a drunkard, was brought, under one of 
his sermons, to cry for mercy to G-od with many tears. 
The work of God had assuredly commenced in the 



84 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 



heart of that poor fallen sinner, but for many months 
his heart was full of wretchedness." His only reply 
to the questions of his affectionate pastor was, " My 
heart is deady all is done^ I can never help myself I 
must go to hell," he said, when asked what he thought 
would become of him, ^'I asked him," said the 
Missionary^ " if he thought it was right that God 
should send him to hell ?" He replied, " Oh, it is right ! 
the devil has been in me ever since I was born !" 
And yet, while in this afflicted state, he was anxious 
to hear the Missionary preach, and he seemed desirous 
to hear him preach the word of God every day. ^'I 
asked," said Brainerd, " why he wanted to hear me 
preach, seeing his heart was dead, and all was done, 
and that he could never help himself, but expected 
that he should go to bell ?" Surely no livelier proof 
was ever given, that the rebel had become a child of 
God, and that the love of God had been shed abroad 
in that contrite heart, by the Holy Ghost, than by the 
reply which he made to his faithful and loving friend 
— '' Iivould have others come to Christ— if I must g'o 
to hell myself V '- It was remarkable," adds the 
Missionary, ''that he seemed to have a great love to 
the people of God, and nothing affected him so much, 
as the thought of being separated from them — this 
seemed to be a very dreadful part of the hell to which 
jhe thought himself doomed !" His heart was at length 
filled with admiration, comfort, satisfaction, and praise 
to G-od. " In all respects," concludes the godly 
Brainerd, '* so far as I am able to judge, he bears the 
marks and characters of one, created anew in Christ 
Jesus to good works !" 



,^12g... 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 85 



I pass, however from the forests of America to the 
wild regions of Southern Africa, for the other narra- 
tive to which I alluded. It is of later date, not further 
back than the year 1845. 

There was an aged woman, named Litsape : she 
had lived during the reign of four of the kings of her 
tribe. In the year 1835, she was baptised and enrolled 
among the members of the Church of Christ, and to 
the day of her decease, she continued a warm-hearted, 
zealous, and consistent disciple of our Blessed Lord. 
Daring that period of ten years there was no part of 
her conduct to excite an unpleasant emotion in the 
minds of her teachers. '' Some years ago, writes the 
Rev. Robert Moffat, " her only son and his wife, with 
Avhom she lived, and on whom she was dependant, left 
the station of Kuruman, and they employed every 
argument to induce the venerable woman to leave with 
them. Their importunity was the more remarkable, 
as she was almost helpless, and viewed by the heathen 
as a nonentity, or in their language — ' a dry old hide.' 
Her son and daughter, both unbelievers, still persisted 
in their endeavors to take her away, but nothing could 
induce her to alter her resolution. Her replies were 
noble ; ' I can be happy any where if Jesus is only 
there ; if I can only hear His voice ! You tell me I 
shall die of hunger here ; I shall trust my Saviour for 
that. He cared for me, He fed me, and clothed me, 
during many, very many years, when I knew him not, 
and thanked Him not ! and will He not take care of 
me now that I love Him ? You know I love Him. 
Leave my God, and the people of G-od, for Satan ! 
No ! Let me die where I am, and let me die of hunger 



86 MISSIONS AND MISSTOXARY SOCIETIES. 



too, rather than leave the service and the people of my 
Saviour. He feeds my soul. I shall not die but live ! ' 

Finding her immovable, they left her without a 
sigh, but other emotions possessed her soul. " You," 
addressing her son and daughter, " will soon forget me, 
but I will not so soon forget you ; for while you sing 
and dance with the heathen, I shall be weeping for 
your souls, and praying for you, my children !" Her 
grand-daughter, who with her husband, Magame, were 
believers — took her to dwell with them, and her home 
was beneath their roof till she died. Her mind was 
ever alive to divine things, and she appeared to put 
the highest value on every word coming from Grod. 
She was never absent, even in the seasons of her great- 
est debility, from public w^orship. Latterly having 
entirely lost her eye-sight, she would totter along with 
a staff' in one hand, and groping with the other, to 
hear the words of Jesus Christ, She rejoiced that the 
sense of hearing was still left to her, and that she 
could still hear her Saviour's voice. ^' She always 
appeared," says Mr. Moffat, '' to have her heart full 
of love to her Redeemer. Wherever she was, or at 
whatever hour of the day or night, she poured forth of 
the good treasure of her heart. She was all peace 
and contentment." 

" The night before her dissolution, I remained with 
her several hours, expecting each to be her last on 
earth. I was conversing with those present about her 
probable age- — she heard us and she spoke — ' I am not 
old,' she said, ' I only began to live, when I first knew 
and loved the Saviour. My former life was a nothing 
— a dream. I was asleep, till a stranger came to me 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 87 

' — it was Jesus. He cried, ' Awake ! aM^ake !' I awoke, 
and beheld his hands and feet which my sins had 
pierced, and then I died with horror — my heart died 
within me. I said, ' Let the anger of the Lord de- 
stroy me, for I have slain His son.' I felt I was a 
murderer ! I felt I was made of sin ! I was not a 
worm, but a serpent. My heart died, I became as a 
corpse. The eagles of heaven saw my body — they 
were descending to devour it ; but Jesus came again, 
and said, ' Live!' I asked her, if she had any misgiv- 
ings, in the certain prospect of soon entering into life, 
in the unseen and deathless state ? She replied, with 
great ardor, ' How can I doubt, when Christ has 
done all for me ? I am not my ov/n, I am part of his 
body.' I spoke of the unmingled happiness enjoyed in 
heaven in the society of saints and angels, ' Yes,' she 
added, ' but it is the presence of the Saviour that 
makes that happiness ! Could I be happy were He 
not there ? No.' She appeared to have no ebbs and 
flows of feeling. From the abounding fulness of her 
heart, her mouth spake. She was much in prayer. 
Her lamp burned with a steady flame, throwing a 
lustre on every thing around her, till it died away in 
the pure day of heaven. She was truly a brand 
plucked from the burning — a trophy of the power of 
the everlasting gospel ; for she had been a sinner of no 
common order — a kind of priestess of the unmean- 
ing rites of heathenism. Her faith was simple as it 
was sincere ; and considering her great age when she 
was aroused to a sense of her danger, I was frequently 
surprised at the extent of her knowledge, and tho 
clearness of her views on Divine subjects." 



88 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

And now I would ask, reader, what think you of 
this last account ? I, for my part, recal some of the 
finest passages in the works of the poets of Grreece 
and Rome — or in tliose of our own language, and I 
can find nothing more grand than the conceptions and 
the language of this aged African woman. She was 
a poet of the highest order, with all the simplicity of 
the faith of a little child. 

But it is not on the lofty and imaginative grandeur 
of her thoughts, and of her expressive language, that 
I would dwell ; I would ask my reader to consider 
how rarely we can point out, among the members of 
our churches in this favored land, to such an instance 
of the power of the gospel of the grace of God upon 
the human heart ; such clearness and fulness of vision, 
such vigor of faith, such heavenly peace, and such 
glorious assurance ! aspirations so lofty from a heart 
so humble ! 

It has been the common cant of many educated 
persons, to speak with contempt of the intellect of the 
African savage ; but their own ignorance is, I repeat, 
the parent of such an unworthy prejudice. Is the 
following description given by a native convert a proof 
of the inferiority of intellect in the African ? He was 
speaking of his former life, before he was brought to a 
saving knowledge of our Divine Redeemer : '' I still 
look back," he said, '' on the dark and dreary road I 
came, with inward horror. I still see the precipices 
on the brink of which I trembled ; I feel as if I still 
heard the lion roaring at my heels! Yes, I still 
shudder, when I think that I might have perished in 
my tlight from death, — dread death, — before the glad 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 89 

tidings of the gospel reached these ears, and the heav- 
enly light dawned upon my midnight path !" Again, 
how affecting, and how beautiful, the language of 
expostulation from an African chief to the Missionary ! 
— how admirably descriptive of the enmity of the nat- 
ural heart to Grod ! " We all ]ove you as much as if 
you were our father ; and we would love you abun- 
dantly more, if you would not talk to us of that man 
you call Jesus ; just leave us to go on as we are." As 
striking is the lamentation of a heathen father, com- 
plaining to the missionaries of the conversion of his 
son : '' Look," said the father ; " there is my son : " 
he was present. '' He is not my son, he is changed 
into another being ; I know him not. He is my heir, 
my first-born ; but he is lost. He is the representative 
of my fathers; but he is dead." This was the lamen- 
tation over a son who had indeed been dead, but was 
alive again ; who had been lost, but was found within 
the fold of G-od. 

It seems to me, however, that nothing can well 
exceed in grandeur the following description given by 
Mr. Moffat, of an interview between the African chief, 
Macaba, and himself: — '' This chief," he says, ^^ was 
illustrious for war and conquest, and had become the 
terror of the interior. He dwelt some hundred miles 
beyond our Missionary station at Lattakoo. My visit 
to him was considered, at the time, a hazardous one, 
but the veteran chief received me with great respect, 
and treated me with much kindness. In one of my 
interviews with this man of war and blood, while 
seated among fifty or sixty of his nobles and counsel- 
lors, including rain-makers, and others of the same 



90 IVnSSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 



order ; in the course of my remarks, the ear of the 
monarch caught the startling sound of a resurrection, 
^'What!" he exclaimed, with astonishment, ^' what 
are these words about the dead I — the dead arise !'' 
^* Yes," was the reply, " all the dead shall arise." 
'' AVill my father arise ?" '' Yes," I answered, " your 
father will arise." " Will all the slain in battle arise ?" 
'' Yes." ^' And will all that have been killed and de- 
voured by lions, tigers, and crocodiles, again revive ?" 
''Yes, and come to judgment." ''And will those 
whose bodies have been left to waste and wither on 
the plains of the deserts, and been scattered to the 
winds, again arise V he asked, vrith a kind of triumph, 
as if he had fairly fixed me. " Yes," I replied, " not 
one shall be left behind." Turning to his people, to 
whom he spoke with a stentorian voice, " Hark ! ye 
wise men, whoever is wise among you, the wisest of 
past generations, did ever your ears hear such strange 
and unheard-of news?" And addressing himself to 
one, whose countenance and attire showed that he had 
seen many years, and was something more than com- 
mon. " Have you ever heard such strange news as 
this ?" " No," was the sage's answer, " I had supposed 
that I possessed all the knowledge of the country, for 
I have heard the tales of many generations. I am 
in the place of the ancients. But my knowledge is 
confounded with the words of his mouth ; verily he 
must have lived long before the period when we were 
born." The chief then turned and addressed himself 
to me, " Father," he said, laying his hand on my 
breast, " I love you much. Your visit and your pres- 
ence have made my heart white as milk. The words 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 91 



of your mouth are sweet like the honey, but the words 
of a resurrection are too great to be heard. I do not wish 
to hear about the dead risin^: ao^ain I The dead cannot 
arise ! The dead shall not arise !" '' Why," I inquired, 
^' can so great a man refuse knowledge, and turn away 
from wisdom ? Tell me, my friend, why I must not add 
to words, and speak of a resurrection ?" Raising his 
arm, which had been strong in battle, and quivering 
his hand, as if grasping a spear, he replied, '^ I have 
slain my thousands, and shall they arise V Never 
before did the light of divine revelation dawn upon his 
savage mind — never had his conscience accused him ; 
no, not for one of the thousands of deeds of rapine and 
murder, which marked his course through a long 
career ! 

With these statements before my reader, let me 
claim his attention to the fact which follows. Some 
years ago when residing in Kent, I was returning to 
my parish, after attending a missionary meeting at 
the town of Maidstone. I was seated on the roof of a 
stage-coach. There were many passengers, and every 
place was occupied. I had been sitting in silence, but 
my companions were conversing. The loudness of 
the voice of a gentleman who sat near me, drew my 
attention to the subject of which he was speaking. 
He was addressing an harangue to the passengers 
around us on the subject of Missions and Missionary 
Societies. His eye had probably been caught by the 
bills on the walls, giving notice of the meeting at 
which I had just been present. His voice was alone 
heard, and he was attacking all such societies in no 
measured terms of abuse. " You are not to suppose," 



92 MISSIONS AND AHSSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

he said to those around him, " that these missionaries 
have ever effected any thing. I can tell you that they 
have never made a single convert. I am able to speak 
with authority on this point, for I have been in heath- 
en countries ; and I tell you plainly, the whole thing 
is one gross imposture. You must not believe their 
tales, there is no truth in them. And as for your 
money," he continued, "' I would not have you 
give a penny to such societies. I can tell 3^ou that 
the people in England who would draw it from 
your pockets, spend it on themselves. Your mo- 
ney never reaches those to whom it is given." — 
In this strain he went on ; and every one was 
looking at him and listening to him ; his vehe- 
mence and his loud voice rising above the noise of the 
carriage, had aroused the attention of all his compa- 
nions. But no one among them answered him. I 
too was silent. I let him speak on, resolving at first 
to say nothing, for my spirit rose in indignation 
within me ; I felt that I could not trust myself to 
speak ; I feared that I might lose my temper, and 
thus, by intemperate and angry words, damage the 
holy cause which I earnestly desired to clear from his 
shameful imputations. I felt also that any reasonings 
of mine might only bring on an argument, which might 
continue unsettled till I got down from the coach, 
some few miles nearer London. But we have always 
a resource in every difficulty. I said to myself; Such 
falsehoods as these assertions must not be suffered to 
proceed. I must speak ; and now while I still sat in 
siience, I raised my heart to God in earnest prayer, 
and besouo^ht Him to teach me how to meet the false- 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 93 

hoods of this violent man ; and I prayed that I might 
be enabled, not only to speak with wisdom, but with 
meekness, keeping my temper under control. There 
was a pause in his speaking, and, turning to my com- 
panions with a firm and distinct voice, I said, calmly, 
" I beg leave to give a full and direct contradiction to 
every word which this gentleman has spoken to you. 
It is not true, and you must not believe him.'' He 
started and turned to me with a look as full of aston- 
ishment as it was of anger. " Who are you, and what 
do you mean," he cried, ^^ by this attack on what I 
have been saying ?" " I am a clergyman," I said, 
gravely and mildly, " and though I must beg your 
pardon for speaking so plainly, what I mean to say is 
this — that you. Sir, have not spoken the truth. I 
have no wish to provoke or to offend you, but I tell 
you gently, but decidedly, your words must not be 
believed on the subject of Christian Missions. You 
have no right to speak as you have spoken. Our fel- 
low passengers must not be permitted to go to their 
several homes, with the impression fixed upon their 
minds, which your words were calculated to produce ; 
and therefore before we separate, I have felt it ne- 
cessary to break the silence which I kept too long, 
and to give a direct and positive contradiction to every 
assertion which you have made." He stared at me 
for a moment with amazement, and again burst forth : 
^' Have you been in India, Sir ? let me ask you that 
question." " No," I replied, " I have not been in In- 
dia." " Well, Sir," he said, " I have been in India ; 
and, therefore, as I have been India and you have 
not, allow me to say, I know what I am speaking 



94 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

about, and speak with authority ; and you can know- 
nothing at all about the matter, for you have seen 
nothing with your own eyes. An eye-witness. Sir, as 
I have been, can offer such testimony, and give such 
proof, as no other man can possibly do." I begged to 
tell him that, whatever he might say to the contrary, 
it was very clear to me that, whether in India, or in 
England, he was not likely to entertain a correct opi- 
nion, or to pass a fair judgment, on such a subject 
' — that the spirit in which he spoke, bore internal evi- 
dence to the false view that he had taken, and conse- 
quently to the false descriptions w^hich he had given. 
In reply to his assertion, that not one native convert 
had ever been made, I could assure him that facts 
w^ere against him, nay, that there was at that time 
one well-known Indian preacher of the gospel, not 
merely a convert, but an ordained minister, whose 
name I mentioned, Abdool Messeeh. I referred to the 
testimony of Schwartz, Dr. Carey, Henry Martyn, 
Bishop Heber, and many others ; but he only endea- 
vored to overpower me with loud words and violent 
assertions, insisting that I was mistaken, and thus 
injuring his own cause by his senseless denial of facts, 
which he could not overturn. He was now indeed 
just doing what I hoped he would do, upsetting, by 
his own want of common candor, the false opinions he 
had perhaps been enabled to impart to the people 
around us. I do not bring before my readers the de- 
tails of this conversation, but I may mention, that I 
remember using an argument which I felt must have 
its weight with my other companions, even if it left 
no impression upon my angry antagonist. It was not 



MISSIONS AND mSS10f<ARY SOCIETIES. 95 

indeed to him that I addressed myself, nor did I think 
it likely that^ on so wilfully perverted a mind, any 
thing that I could say would carry conviction along 
with it ; but it might not be so with the rest of those 
present. They could hear reason, and they would 
judge for themselves. They would also discriminate 
between the spirit of my adversary and my own spi- 
rit, and if they saw, that with a determined and un- 
shaken firmness, tempered by christian meekness and 
gentleness, I withstood his virulent attacks, and de- 
fended the cause which I had at heart, showing that 
it was not for argument's sake, or for victory, but for 
the truth that I was combatting, they would go to 
their several hom.es without sustaining that injury 
from which it was my earnest desire to guard them> 
" Though I have not been in India," I said, '^I have 
at this moment several brothers, and some intimate 
friends in India, individuals to whom I am bound by 
no common ties of natural affection, and who would 
have no wish to deceive me, and no possible motive 
for doing so ; but if I were to hear one, or all of those 
beloved friends addressing you in the spirit, or with 
the language of this gentleman, I do not hesitate to 
declare, that I should say to you of their assertions, as 
I have said of his— You must not, my friends, believe 
them ; they are statements which are net true ; sim- 
ply because those statements are at direct variance 
with well-known facts — facts which are indeed ac- 
credited by men of the most enligijtened piety, and 
the most blameless and consistent conduct — men of 
the highest integrity and truth — men peculiarly fitted 
to form a correct estimate, and to pass a sound, true 



96 MISSIOx\S AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 



verdict on the state of Christian Missions, and the 
character and conduct of Christian Missionaries. The 
fact that my friends had been in India, would have no 
more weight with me than the fact, that this gentle- 
man has been in India. The mere circumstance, that 
a man has been in such, or such a place, may prove 
that he has been in a position to form a correct opin- 
ion upon the people of that place ; but it can prove no 
more. Something more is surely required than hav- 
ing been in a particular place, in order to our being 
qualified to give a correct account of the real state of 
affairs in that place. Much will depend upon the bias 
of the man's own mind, and the class of persons he 
associates with in that place. 

'' For instance, suppose I had the charge of a quiet 
rural parish, beyond that ridge of lofty hills which 
you see rising to the right of the road. A stranger 
comes to that parish, a careless, ungodly man, full of 
prejudices against all vital religion, and all godly per- 
sons. He passes his time, while he remains there, at 
the public-house in the place, and he visits at the 
houses of a few families, the members of whom he 
has met with, drinking and swearing at that public- 
house. From such low and degraded characters he 
seeks his information as to the state of the parish, and 
the characters of my parishioners, and on such infor- 
mation he forms his opinions, and takes his estimate 
of the godly people of the place. He never enters the 
house of Cxod, he never exchanges a word with one 
Christian man of high and unexceptionable character 
in that parish ; he never enters one of those lowly 
cottages where he might receive lessons of heavenly 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 97 

wisdom, and behold examples of saint-like resignation, 
from some aged or dying follower of our Blessed Lord, 
contented even to thankfulness with their low estate, 
in the midst of poverty and disease, and all the circum- 
stances of what the world deems wretchedness. Do 
you tell me that if that stranger went away and gave 
this report of my parish, which he had received from 
the class that he had associated with, — namely; that 
there was no true religion in the place, that the Pastor 
and the religious portion of his flock, were no better 
than a set of bigots and hypocrites; that they v/ere 
not sincere, not honest in their profession of the chris- 
tian faith — that, in a word — the gospel was not faith- 
fully preached ; and that it had produced no fruit ;— 
do you tell me that this report would deserve to be 
received ? 

'' Now, supposing such a case as this, would any one 
assert, that the mere circumstance of a stranger's 
€oming and sojourning for a time in a certain place, 
and gathering his information concerning the work of 
(xod in the place, from a small party of opposers to 
that work, would be any proof that his judgment was 
a right one, or his estimate a fair one, as to the real 
state of religion among my parishioners. 

" But I would, on no account, presume to say, 
that I mean to liken this gentleman to the stranger 
whom I have supposed to have visited the quiet village 
beyond those hills to the right. So far from being a 
lover of low company, or of the pleasures of the drunk- 
ard and the profligate, I would give him full credit for 
being a gentleman of highly respectable character in 
the opinion of the world, and for associating only with 
5 



9S MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

persons as respectable as himself. I would bring no 
accusation against him, but that he may be merely 
what is called a man of the world, feeling no interest 
in those subjects which are of unspeakable importance 
in the eyes of godly men, taking no pains to acquire 
any correct information about them, simply because, 
like a highly intellectual and educated man of old 
times, he cares for none of those things ; and with 
all deference to his opinion on other subjects, about 
which he may be well fitted to pass his judgment, — 
I do maintain that, en the subject of Missions to 
the Heathen, he has proved that he is not qualified to 
speak. Facts which are, after all, the best arguments^ 
are entirely contradictory to his assertions.'' 

I think I am not mistaken in saying that my 
prayer had been answered, and that I could read in the 
countenances of my companions that my words had 
not been spoken in vain. The impetuous antagonist 
of that hallowed cause, which I loved with all my 
heart, was silent, if not convinced. The coach however 
stopped, and the guard reminded me that here I was 
to leave them. I begged to shake hands with my 
opponent ; and bidding farewell to him, and to my 
other fellow-travellers, I got down from the coach, and 
was soon v/alking tov\^ards my own home across the 
quiet fields in the direction of that rural parish, among 
the hills and lovely valleys on the right of the roadside 
from Maidstone to London, to which I had alluded : 
not without many thoughts, and some of them 
thoughts of prayer, as my mind reverted to that little 
company who had been my fellow-passengers, not 
merely in that journey of a few hours, but in that 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 99 

portion of the journey of life ; whom I was probably 
never to meet again, till on that day when every man 
must give an account of himself to Gfod — my fellow- 
travellers to eternity, among whom I had been gra- 
ciously permitted to be, I trust, a witness for the Lord 
G-od, and His everlasting truth. 

A few years ago, a circumstance occurred at a 
meeting of a Missionary society in the city of Chester, 
where I was presont, which may be well introduced 
after the account I have given of the conversation on 
the Maidstone coach. 

A stout middle-aged man entered the Town Hall, 
and seated himself on one of the benches there. He 
was apparently an officer in the navy or army, and a 
stranger in the city. It was soon evident to the per- 
sons near whom he had seated himself, that he had 
come to the meeting in no friendly spirit. Having 
seen the placards on the walls, in which it was an- 
nounced, he seemed as if he had purposely come with 
a wish to interrupt the proceedings of the evening. 
"Without addressing himself particularly to any indi- 
vidual, he spoke loud enough for those around him to 
hear his remarks, on the statements from the platform 
to which they were listening ; and he appeared at 
times, as if almost unable to restrain his indignant 
anger, or the bitter contempt with which he was 
animated from time to time ; repeating, as he turned 
from side to side, '^ You don't believe all this I hope : 
I can tell you, there is not a word of truth in what 
they are saying." He attracted especially the notice 
of a Christian lady, who sat near him, and who was 
kept in a continual state of uneasiness ; fearing lest he 



100 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

should start up and interrupt the speakers, and so 
cause a disturbance. But she observed that by 
degrees, his attention was rivetted by what he heard, 
and that he seemed insensibly to calm down in earnest 
and absorbed attention, to the accounts given by a 
Missionary from India, the Rev. Mr. Leupholt, who 
was then addressing the assembly ; nay more, that at 
length he took out his pocket-book, and v/as occupied 
in making notes of the facts that were stated ; and 
perhaps no person there present was more deeply in- 
terested in the subject of the meeting, than that now 
thoughtful and silent man. The very expression of 
his countenance was changed, and a deep impression 
was evidently made upon his mind by what he heard. 
"When he rose up at the conclusion of the meeting — 
for he remained to the last — the lady of whom I have 
spoken, and who had been unable to resist watching 
him with increasing interest — also rose up, and not- 
withstanding the throng, contrived to keep close 
behind him till they had reached the door, where plates 
were held to receive the contributions of the meeting. 
She had seen him take out his purse, and as he dropped 
his donation into the plate, her eye caught the glim- 
mer of gold — the free-will offering of a heart and a 
hand which had been so lately closed against the 
preaching of the gospel to the heathen. His preju- 
dices were gone, his opposition had been overcome. 
The truth had approved itself to his conscience, and 
had prevailed. Much has been said against the ex- 
citement of Missionary meetings, yet what is excite- 
ment in so noble a cause, but the stirring of a revived 
life where all was dull and dead before ! 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 101 

Among the objections to Missions, I have heard the 
complaint that the Missionaries were often men of 
inferior education and vu]gar manners ; a complaint 
which may or may not be partially true, but which if 
it were true, would only prove that men of education 
and refinement have been deplorably backward, in of- 
fering themselves for this distinguished service in the 
ministry of our blessed Lord. When, however, we 
hear so senseless a complaint, and think of the bles- 
sing which has crowned the labors of these men of 
inferior education and station, we cannot but be re- 
minded of what is told us in the inspired word ! That 
when the chief men among the Jewish Sanhedrim, 
'^ saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived 
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they 
marvelled, and took knowledge of them that they had 
been with Jesus." Acts iv. 13. 

But I would ask, if there appears to be any want 
of refinement — refinement of the highest kind, even 
that of the spiritual mind, in the following pictures of 
the Missionary, and his family circle, from which one 
cherished member was to go forth a stranger to strange 
and distant lands ? I can vouch for the faithfulness 
of the portraiture in both instances. "When the Rev. 

Mr. Y , of the Church Missionary Society, received 

his instructions before the committee at the Church 
Missionary house, he manifested such a lovely dispo- 
sition, and expressed himself in so impressive and 
affecting a manner, that a gentleman present followed 
him out of the room, feeling desirous to obtain some 
information from him, respecting his family. He 
asked, ''Have you a father living?" Mr. V re- 



102 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 

plied, '' I have." '' Is your mother also alive ? " He 
answered, '' Yes." " Have you any brothers and 
sisters ? " The answer was, '' There are ten of us in 
family." The next question was a very natural one : 
'• Did they give you up willingly ? " Mr. V re- 
plied, " He trusted that he could say they did ; " 
adding, " On the morning that I left home, we all met 
around the domestic altar. My father in prayer, com- 
mended me to the guidance, and keeping, and blessing 
of our covenant God ; and when we rose from our 
knees, I believe that one sentiment pervaded every 
breast. I believe that one and all could say — We 
love you, our son, our brother, most tenderly ; but we 
all love Jesus Christ far more, and are thankful that 
one of our number is called to the high privilege of 
makino' known His unsearchable riches to the heathen. 

When the Rev. Mr. W , of the same society, 

had fully determined to go forth as a Missionary, he 
could not make up his mind to tell his aged father of 
what he was ofoinsf to do, as he knew it would cost 
him so much to part with him ; he did tell his sister, 
and he met with this reply, '* My dear brother, I have 
often prayed the Lord of the harvest to raise up 
laborei'S, and to send them forth into his harvest, but 
I have never prayed, I never ca?i pray, that He may 
send you." 

A short time before his departure, he put into the 
hand of the same friend to whom he had mentioned 
the words of his beloved sister, a letter which he had 
just received from his father, in answer to the one in 
which he had made known to him, for the first time, 
his intention of going forth as a Missionary to India. 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 103 

In the beginning of the letter were very strong ex- 
pressions of affection on the part of the father for his 
son ; and then he went on to say in these simple and 
touching terms, ^^ If the Lord has need of yon among 
the heathen, I dare not oppose your going forth among 
them ; for I know what He has done for me. He 
gave His adorable Son, not merely to live for me, but 
to die as an atonement for my sin !'' and he bade his 
son go forth with a father's blessing on his head, 
declaring tbat as long as he lived, he would not fail 
to supplicate the Grod of all grace to be v^^ith his child, 
and to prosper the work of his hands. A day or two 
before he sailed, in a letter dated Deal, we have this 
description of his departure from his father's bouse ; 
^ Painful— most painful it was to tear myself away 
from my much-loved and very precious home. I 
could not bear the pain of leave-taking, so, rising 
early, I secretly withdrew.' Through a half-open 
door, at the early dawn, the son stood gazing upon his 
aged father as he slept — and then quitted the house 
undiscovered, as he trusted, by any member of his 
beloved family— but a faithful servant-girl, who had 
been, as he says, in ^ happy days gone by, a pupil in 
my Sunday school, and Grod had blessed my counsels 
to her, saw me, and she, poor girl, hung upon me like 
a sister, and would not be pacified without sobbing out 
her tearful farewell. As to myself,' he added; ' my 
nerves, which have sometimes been braced up to im- 
movable firmness, utterly gave vv^'ay, and I wept, as I 
had never wept before. But I have not lost my best 
friend — our Master faithful and true, who suffers me 
to draw nigh to him, apportions my strength to my 



104 MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES, 

day, and will not leave me nor forsake me, as I trust, 
till He has made me more than a conqueror, through 
Himself who loveth me. 

This devoted missionary never returned to his 
native land, and to his happy home. His mortal re- 
mains lie buried beneath the burning sands of India. 
He died of jungle-fever, after ten days of severe suffer- 
ing. The enemy of souls strove hard to shake his faith^ 
but for some hours previous to his departure, he was 
permitted to enjoy the sweetest peace of mind, and in 
the firm faith and hope of everlasting life, through the 
sole merits of his Redeemer, he entered into his rest. 

Let me, in conclusion, with all seriousness, urge 
upon those among my readers, who have hitherto been 
indifferent or opposed to christian missions, that if 
they are really the disciples of Him, who was Himself 
the first missionary, and came down from heaven to 
this accursed earth to seek and to save those that were 
lost, that the necessity of an imperative duty, which 
they cannot neglect but at their peril, is laid upon 
them to come forward in this great and holy cause. 
Let me also assure them, from the deep conviction of 
my own mind, that there is not any topic more abound- 
ing in high and delightful interest, than the recorded 
triumphs of the grace of God, and the gospel of Christ 
among the benighted nations of the earth. I do not 
scruple to say, that the opening of the glorious subject 
may be almost likened to the discovery of a new world. 
Sweeter than the spicy odors which came wafted from 
the unknown shores, about to open their scenes of en- 
chanting loveliness to the gaze of Columbus and his 
wearied voyagers ; sweeter — far sweeter — the spirit- 



MISSIONS AND MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. 105 

ual fragrance breathing from those regions where, 
under the light and love of the gospel of the grace of 
Grod, the wilderness rejoices and blossoms as the rose, 
and the land before them is as the garden of Eden. 



5* 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE YOUNG INFIDEL. 

I HAD not been long settled at H — t, when I was told 
that a youth named Thomas R — ^n, whom I had not 
seen, was in a hopeless state of health, and much in 
need of instruction. I heard this one Saturday evening, 
and thinking that he had no time to lose, I set off the 
next day, after evening service, to visit him. His 
mother's cottage was in a sequestered lane near the 
hamlet of W — -n, and by the time I reached the door, 
the day was fast closing in. The evening — it was in 
March — was unusually cold and gloomy ; but the dis- 
mal gloom which had gathered upon every outward 
object around me, was not darker nor heavier than 
that which hung upon the spirit of the wretched boy 
whom I had come to visit. The door was opened by 
his mother, who seemed pleased at my coming. I 
found a slight and delicate-looking youth, about six- 
teen years of age. Though he received me with the 
respectful manner of one who was evidently well-bred 
and intelligent, I perceived plainly enough that he had 
no wish to see me, or (as he afterwards told me) any 
minister of religion. He hung down his head, and 
sat without speaking, except to answer, with evident 
reluctance, the questions I addressed to him ; but his 
replies were given, I could see, unwillingly, and in 



THE YOUNG INFIDEL. 107 

very few words. His mother told me that he had 
been in low spirits since his last vmlk to Market Dray- 
ton, where the doctor, whom he had consulted, after 
partly stripping him, had examined him, and told him 
abruptly that there was no human probability of his 
ever getting better in this world. I tried in vain to 
draw him into conversation, or to make him feel how 
fully I entered into his feelings, how tenderly I sym- 
pathized with him ! He said nothing, but when I 
knelt down and prayed beside him, he covered his face 
with his hands, and the tears trickled out through his 
fingers. His face was still bent down when I took 
leave of him, and left the cottage. 

From that day, I did not fail to be a constant vi- 
sitor in the little quiet chamber of Thomas R. I saw 
that his time in this world was short ; his weakness 
increased daily, and his countenance was bright with 
the hectic color of consumption. But sorry as I was 
to see him suffer, it was not the state of his bodily 
health which alarmed me. When I discovered the 
utter wretchedness of his mind, the desolation of his 
inward state, I began to feel the deepest anxiety about 
him. I read to him from the word of life, and prayed 
with him, and endeavoured to draw from him some 
answers to my earnest questions, some account of his 
own state ; but for several days I felt that I had 
gained no ground with him. He was quiet and atten- 
tive, but he said nothing, he did not even raise his 
head to look me in the face. I have learnt from him 
that he was then without hope, either about this world 
or the world to come. 

"' When I had won his confidence, I did not won- 



108 THE YOUNG INFIDEL. 



der at his deep dejection. Young as he was, he wag 
an infidel, well read in the works of Tom Paine, and 
others of that wretched school ; and he had been a 
mocker and blasphemer of the holy Bible, and the 
blessed name of Jesus Christ. I could scarcely be- 
lieve it possible that a youth hardly turned sixteen, 
residing among uneducated cottagers in that seques- 
tered part of the country, should have met with such 
books — but the person is still alive who will have to 
answer to Grod for having put those books into the 
hands of that ingenuous and gentle boy, and I have 
no wish to expose him. The books had been read, nay 
studied, and he had even gone so far, that in order to 
strengthen himself in his arguments against the word 
of Grod, he had frequently opened the Bible with the 
desire of finding something to attack or ridicule in its 
sacred pages. He had also been accustomed at times 
to take one of his vile books, or some worthless novel 
in his hand, and put himself in the way of a simple- 
minded and pious dissenter, who was in the habit of 
walking from Drayton to H — — t one day in the week^ 
that he might show him the book, and dispute with 
him, and make a mock of the grief which he betrayed 
on hearing the language of the wretched youth. I 
heard this, not only from Thomas E.^ but also from 
the good man himself. 

No words of mine can describe the utter wretched- 
ness of mind of that poor dying boy. I did not attempt 
to rem.ove it, feeling that such a work was beyond the 
power of any human being. But all that I could dcr^ 
I endeavored to do. I brought before him the real 
character of the word of G-od, by reading to him coh- 



THE YOUNG INFIDEL. 



tinually such portions of the inspired volume as seemed 
calculated to convey to one like himself a clear ap- 
prehension of the mind of Grod ; and 1 was as con- 
stantly on my knees beside him, endeavoring to lead 
his thoughts, by simple and earnest expressions of 
prayer, to the presence of One who is as gracious as 
He is glorious, as condescending as He is mighty* 
As long as he had strength to kneel, he knelt with me^ 
and I believe he soon discovered the deep and affec- 
tionate interest which his sinfulness and his misery 
had excited in me. He was constantly in my 
thoughts when away from him, and my thoughts were 
generally turned to prayers, when they were occupied 
with him. 

I found in this instance, as 1 have often, nay 
always found, that the only thing to be done in such 
cases, after having humbly and diligently used the 
means He has appointed, is to wait upon the Lord. I 
soon learnt that I had to do, not only with one whose 
powers of mind were of no common order, but (what 
was of far higher importance,) with one who was 
deeply in earnest. He began to open to me his whole 
heart, and fearful indeed was the spectacle disclosed^ 
of errors in principle, and their natural consequence, 
sins in practice. '^And now, Sir," he said mournfully 
to me on one occasion, after having spoken to me with 
a plainess that showed how precious truth had become 
to him, and he turned away his face as he spoke, 
looking the picture of shame and misery, " now that 
you know me as I am, I think you will never come 
near me again." I thought of Him whose minister I 
am, and whose lovely example I was called to follow, 



110 THE YOUNG TNPIBEL. 



who never broke the " bruised reed," nor quenched the 
" smoking flax ;" but though I let him see how deeply 
1 felt for him, T did not for a moment attempt to pal- 
liate the enormity of his guilt. 

We got on but slowly, for though he had often 
opened the Bible, during his days of dark and wilful 
unbelief, and knew much of its contents, he knew 
nothing whatever of the glorious scope of the word of 
Grod, and had never felt the warm effulgence which 
shines throughout its pages upon the heart of every 
simple-minded believer : and when it pleased Grod to 
answer our prayers, and to teach him to understand 
" the truth as it is in Jesus," he did not pass over 
from confusion and misery to ungrounded hopes and 
raptures. If he was at length enabled to believe that 
his sins were forgiven, he could never forget how 
awfully he had offended. 

From the first moment that I attended him to the 
very last, I never heard him make one excuse for him- 
self, or attempt, in any way to justify himself. After 
leaving him one day full of hope, and joy, and peace, 
I have found him the next with his countenance fallen, 
and bathed in tears, complaining that he was too un- 
worthy to hope. 

He did not merely hear me read, and then trouble 
himself no more with the subject; but before I shut 
the book he would aslv me to mark the passage for 
him, and I frequently found him afterwards with the 
Bible upon his pillovv^ intently occupied with it. Once 
I found him with our Common Prayer Book, and he 
told me that he had been looking very attentively over 
the Service for Baptism, and that of the Lord's Sup- 



THE2 YOUNG INFIDEL. Ill 

per. He had been in fact searching for himself, and 
judging for himself, and he deplored how much he had 
lost, in never valuing those blessed ordinances, and 
not living as one for whom they had been graciously- 
ordained by their Divine Founder. 

I have tried in vain to recal the circumstances of 
my many interviews with Thomas R. In a short 
diary which I kept at that time, I find his name con- 
stantly occurring, with some brief remark, but little 
is given in detail. For instance, — '' I prayed with 
Thomas R. ; he is of a very meek and lowly spirit.'^ 
" I went to see T. R., he is very ill but in a promising 
state of mind.'^ " T. R. — a deeply interesting inter* 
view with him." — " I went in the evening to my poor 
young friend, T. R., who has now taken to his bed« 
I had a most affecting interview with him. He spoke 
to me about his mother, and with a broken and con* 
trite heart about himself." — " This evening spent some 
time with T. R, I was much pleased with him* 
While with him I wrote, chiefly by his dictation, to 
— — , who has been so dangerous a companion to him.'^ 
^' I passed some time with T. R. who is, I hope, better 
prepared for his removal from this present world. The 
poor boy is much endeared to me. I must endeavor, 
at some future time, to write down a narrative of my 
conversations with him." " T. R. is worse. He has 
been very ill all day, and was very low this evening, 
but appeared happier after we had prayed together." — 
'^ T. R. very humble and happier. He gets weaker 
and weaker, but not in faith." — " I prayed with poor 
T. R. He is apparently going very fast ; but he is, I 
believe, in a blessed state of mind. He said to me, in 



112 THE YOUNG INFtBEL. 

answer to a question which I put to him, with a voice 
faint from his extreme weakness, ' I am all hope !' 
and as I left him, he added, ' I will keep on asking for 
mercy ; I think He will hear me !' Much as he had 
disliked my presence at firsts I was now struck by his 
affection for me.-^ 

I had often observed his eyes fixed on my hand as 
it lay upon the open Bible, and I had as often with- 
drawn it ; for it seemed to me that he was comparing 
its healthy appearance with his own, now so wasted 
and so pallid, and that when he marked the contrast, 
he was grieved about it ; I said to him one day, *' Why 
do you look so earnestly upon my hand ?" "' Because 
I do so love it !" was his instant reply ; and before I 
was aware of his intention he bent down his head 
suddenly and pressed his lips to it. 

Not long before his death, being one day too unwell 
to see him, I sent to inquire after him. They brought 
me word that they feared he would die that night. 
The next day, however, on going to his mother's 
cottage, I found him a little revived. As I was taking 
leave of him, he looked at me very anxiously, and 
said, " There is still one thing that grieves me." I 
began to fear that some blessed truth was not clearly 
apprehended, some precious promise not heartily re- 
ceived, and I asked him, almost in as anxious a spirit, 
what it was that troubled him. '^ I find," he answered 
with a trembling voice, '' that I cannot love Jesus my 
Saviour as I ought to love him ; I cannot, do not love 
Him !" " But you wish to love Him," I said, ''you 
wish to love Him with your whole heart." Instantly 
the tears rushed into his eyes, and his whole face 



THE YOUNG INFIDEL. 



113 



became crimson. " Oh ! indeed, indeed, I do," he 
replied, and then after a pause, he added, '' but I 
will go on praying, and He can but cast me off at 
last." " He will not do so, you know he will not," 
I said. '' No : He will not ! He will not !" and as he 
spoke, a bright smile spread over his whole face. 

The next time that I visited him, I find it written 
in my diary, " I fear that I have taken my last leave 
in this world of my interesting charge T. R. He 
turned to me, and said, ' Father, if we do not meet 
again in this world, I think that we shall meet in 
heaven.' He was, as I always found him, in the same 
earnest humble state of mind. The tears gathered 
into his eyes as he begged his mother to leave him 
alone with me. ' She will have no one to care for her 
when I am gone,' — he said, ' be a friend to her for my 
sake.' Every word he thus uttered was spoken with 
difficulty, and with a pause between." The day (un- 
like that on which I paid my first visit to him) was 
bright with the warm, beautiful sunshine of spring. 
The trees were bursting into leaf; and in the fresh 
grass of the green fields opposite the cottage, the cow- 
slip had begun to lift up its gay and scented flowers. 
The sweet singing of the birds in the hedge-rows of 
the lane beneath the open casement came with the 
pleasant air into the chamber of death. I remembered 
the melancholy words of a dying person, whom I at- 
tended in the spring of the foregoing year. He was 
sitting at an open window, and as he looked out upon 
the beautiful garden before him, and saw the trees and 
the flowers in the first glory of their new life, he said, 
" 'Tis sad to leave all this at such a season, and go 



114 THE YOUNG INFIDEL. 

down to the dark grave." I observed a shade of sad- 
ness on the countenance of Thomas R., and I spoke to 
him of the paradise of the children of Grod, reminding 
him how we are taught to expect that a far more glo- 
rious beauty will be spread over every thing there. 
" There will be brighter skies," I said, " and fairer 
scenes ; and the angels of Grod, and the spirits of saints 
already departed, to bear you company." I paused 
for a moment. "With an effort — for every word was 

an effort to him — he continued the sentence, ^' and 

Christ !" They were the last words he ever spoke to me. 

At a very early hour the next morning a message 
came from him that he was dying, and wished to see 
me ; but when I reached the cottage, I found only 
the pale, lifeless body, lying motionless as a statue 
of ivory, the face calm and beautiful with peace, and 
his mother weeping over it. 

I believe that his sins were all blotted out by the 
blood of Jesus Christ ; and his spirit was converted 
and sanctified by the quickening power of God the 
Holy G-host ; and that he was forgiven and accepted 
by the Father of Mercies as a living and inseparable 
member of that mystical body, of which the Son is the 
ever-living and glorified head. 

There is a narrow mound in H — ^t church-yard, it 
is covered with the greenest turf, and lies in the little 
angle on the southern side of the old church, between 
the porch and wall. It is marked by no head-stone, 
and is probably unnoticed and unknown by any one, 
for the desolate mother of Thomas R — n has left the 
place ; but there rest the mortal remains of that once 
unhappy, but now blessed child of Grod. 



CHAPTER X. 

DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

Few persons, perhaps, have so many opportunities of 
studying character through so wide a range, and under 
such a variety of circumstances, as the minister of 
Christ. His sacred office brings him in contact alike 
with the holiest and the vilest, the most exalted saint, 
and the most degraded criminal, the highest and the 
lowest in the scale of humanity. It is, however, the 
blessed privilege of the minister of Christ to minister 
in spiritual things to the one, while he is perhaps 
learning much that is edifying to himself ; and with 
regard to the other, while he makes it clearly under- 
stood that he regards the sin with deep abhorrence, 
he may by the sweet exercise of the law of kindness 
to the sinner, be made the instrument, under God, of 
winning him to those holy, happy ways, which he 
might otherwise have never known. The gospel which 
he is called upon to set forth, not only in his preaching, 
but in all his intercourse with such characters, is in- 
deed death to sin, and life to every sinner brought by 
the grace of Grod to mourn over and forsake his sins. 

It so happened, during the early years of my 
ministry, that I became acquainted with a gang of 
thieves of daring and desperate character, among my 
own parishioners. They afterwards acquired a fright- 
ful notoriety in that part of the county ; and though 



116 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 



SO many years have passed a\Yay, I have lately heard, 
on returning to the neighborhood, that the gang is not 
yet wholly broken up. 

A poor vadow, who had once moved in a higher 
sphere, and had enjoyed more than the common com- 
forts of life, came out from the door of her little 
cottage, one morning, and stopped me as I was walk- 
ing up the street in wliich she resided. AVith a 
sorrowful expression of countenance, and a trembling 
voice, she entreated me to find an opportunity of 
speaking to her son Charles, to persuade him to forsake 
his evil courses. He was her youngest child, a hand- 
some youth of nineteen. She had, as she afterwards 
confessed to me, neglected her elder sons, and lavished 
all her tenderness, with mistaken indulgence, upon this 
wilful and ungracious boy : and she had now lost the 
little control that she once possessed over him : he 
feared no longer to displease or grieve her. He had 
taken to drinking, she said, and to remaining out at 
nights ; and she had every reason to dread that he 
would come to no good, from the bad companions with 
whom he was associated. She seemed terrified at the 
prospect before her, and at being obliged to own to 
herself that she was almost hopeless about this much- 
loved child. She did indeed love him ; her very exis- 
tence was, as it afterwards proved, bound up in him. 
I saw him soon after, and with affectionate plainness 
laid before him the inevitable and awful consequences 
of the course upon which he had entered ; but I saw 
from his manner that the s^ravest warnino^s and the 
most earnest remonstrances were quite unheeded ; he 
was sullenly civil, and I left him, feeling that I had 
spoken, and might continue to speak in vain. 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 117 

Not many weeks afterwards, several farm-houses 
in the immediate neighborhood were attacked and 
robbed, in the dead of the night ; but the robbers 
escaped. Suspicions fell upon a few doubtful charac- 
ters, but nothing could be brought home to them. 
Another more daring robbery, however, took place. A 

farm-house on H gh heath was attacked and 

entered. The master of the house was seized, and 
placed between two feather beds by some of the mis- 
creants, while the rest of the party ransacked the 
premises. The poor man was found almost dead ; 
but the robbers were discovered and taken. Chiefly 
owing to the information given by the farmer's daugh- 
ter, an heroic ^girl of sixteen, some of the men were 
identified. She had carefully marked their features, 
when in the scuffle the crape with which they had 
covered their faces had been displaced ; and four men 
were taken into custody. One of the four was Charles 

N d. They were brought by the constables to the 

house of the Clerk of the Peace ; and the crowd as- 
sembled round his door, which I saw from my study- 
window, first apprised me of the fact. A few hours 
afterwards, the poor old widowed mother of Charles 
came to me. Her state of mind was truly piteous. 
She had just seen the cart driven away, in which her 
son and his companions were carried off" to Bury gaol : 
and two of her neighbors had led her away, one sup- 
porting each arm, to prevent her sinking to the ground. 
^' Oh, Sir," she said, ''he went away laughing and 
jesting with the crowd ; and they said he had no 
feeling : but I am his mother, and I could see through 
it all, and how he put on that laugh to hide from all 



118 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

of them how deeply he felt ! He could not hide it from 
me." 

From that hour she was a broken-hearted woman. 
She had been unwell before, but i now saw that she 
was not only overwhelmed with grief, but seriously 
ill ; and after trying to speak comfort, where I felt no 
comfort could be given, I entreated her to let me send 
a doctor to her. At first she did not answer ; she had 
scarcely heeded what I said ; but when I repeated my 
entreaty, she said with a submissive gentleness, which 
was very affecting : '' Oh yes, Sir, if you please, I will 
see the doctor, and take any thing that he may give 
me : but no medicine that he may send me can do 
me good now, I can never lift up my head again." 

Some days after, she brought me a letter from her 
son, filled with expressions of penitence ; and he ex- 
pressed himself with a clearness of view on sacred sub- 
jects which astonished me, and which seemed in some 
sort, to comfort her. He expressed a hope that he 
should be acquitted for want of evidence in his parti- 
cular case ; and he made many promises of amend- 
ment in the event of his being restored to liberty. 

I have since met with many a counterpart of that 
letter, a sort of production too commonly sent forth on 
such occasions, by the most consummate villains, con- 
cocted with the assistance of some unhappy creature, 
familiar with the mere cant of religious phraseology. 
But I was at that time but little experienced in the 
knowledge of such characters. I afterwards learned 
from the governor of the gaol, that such was actually 
the case with regard to that letter. 

The poor mother and I read it together ; and she 



^ 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 119 

told me it gave her as much consolation as any thing 
in this world could do. She hoped, and she believed, 
she said, that he v^as really penitent. " But ah, it 
matters little," she added, when I reminded her that 
the assizes were at hand, and that the trial v/ould soon 
be over, and expressed a hope that her son might be 
then restored to her, and might become a new crea- 
ture. '' It matters little," she said, ^'he may or he 
may not be acquitted ; he may be penitent, and I hope 
he is : but I shall never see him again : my heart is 
broken ; and before the assizes come on, I shall be laid 
in my grave." Her sad words proved but too true. 
She died ; and we laid her body in the grave, before 
the assizes came on. G-od w^as very merciful to her, 
and He took her from the evil to come. She died be- 
lieving that the heart of her son was changed. Had 
she lived longer, she would have known that he was 
the most daring, reckless, and hardened of that nume- 
rous gang. 

I had promised the mother, and the prisoner him- 
self, whom I visited in gaol, that I would be present at 
the trial, and give him every attention in my power 
as a minister of the gospel ; and on the day when the 
assizes commenced, I set off to Bury St. Edmunds, a dis- 
tance of tvv^enty miles. Half-way on the road, I over- 
took a young man in deep mourning, and when he 
turned his head as I drove by, I recognized one of the 

brothers of Charles N ^d, a young man of excellent 

character, and decided piety. He was also on his way 
to Bury, he told me, to help his unfortunate brother, 
which he thought it might be in his power to do. I 
wondered to myself how he could have it in his power 



120 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

to be of any possible assistance to his brother in a court 
of law : but the poor fellow had already w^alked many 
miles, and I made him take his seat beside me, and 
drove him to his journey's end. On my asking him 
where he would be set down, he named a little inn at 
the entrance of the town ; but he was somewhat dis- 
concerted on our arrival there, by finding a crowd of 
the witnesses against the prisoners, standing about the 
door. They had all been taken to that house by the 
attorney for the prosecution ; and some of them looked 
at me wdth no very favorable eyes, when they saw me 
in company with a brother of one of the prisoners. I 
went on to the Angel, and told my companion to follow 
me thither. He had expressed a wish that I should 
go with him to the counsel, whom he had requested 
an attorney at — — to engage in his brother's defence ; 
the brothers having subscribed together to pay the 
counsel. We had much difficulty in finding Mr. 

C r, a barrister of first-rate talent, whom Henry 

N d had fixed upon as the counsel to be employed. 

The trial was just commencing when we caught sight 
of him, coming out of the court. He was in haste, 
but I stopped him, and he listened with much kindness 
to the questions of Henry N— d. He turned to the 
bundle of papers which he held in his hand, and after 
glancing his eyes over every brief, he said : " There 

must be some mistake here. Charles N d ! I 

have no such name. No, I am positive that no appli- 
cation has been made to me. I am not employed for 
your brother." He was obliged to hurry away, and 
we entered the assize court. I was shown into the 
magistrates' box, and sat beside the judge during the 



^P^ 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS, 121 

trial. Opposite me, leaning against the iron rails 
which divided the populace from the dock, I soon after 
saw the anxious brother of the prisoner. He had 
pressed through the crowd, and taken his stand there. 
An exciseman's ink-bottle was fixed to the button hole 
of his coat, and during the trial, I saw that he was 
taking notes of all that passed — keeping his place at 
times, with some difficulty, close to the rails — the 
court being immensely crowded. 

As the trial proceeded, it became more and more 
evident that the four prisoners who stood before me in 
the dock would be found guilty. The case was a dar- 
ing outrage committed by men of desperate character ; 
the evidence of the witnesses was clear and direct, 
leaving not a doubt of their guilt-^ — that of the young 
girl of sixteen, the daughter of the farmer, was con- 
clusive, and it was given with a calm and modest self- 
possession and propriety of manner, which won for her 
the approbation of the judge and the admiration of the 
whole court. The counsel for the defence of Charles 

N d was a young barrister, who appeared to have 

but little acquaintance with his brief, and whose inex- 
perience was but too evident. 

I saw the look of disappointment on the face of 

Henry N d, when he rose up. The trial was 

drawing to its close, and the case against all the pris- 
oners seemed clearly made out. My eyes had been 

frequently turned to Henry N- d. He was now 

writing — but he suddenly disappeared ; immediately 
after, a note fixed to the end of the long white wand 
of one of the sheriff's men, was put into the hand of 

the counsel for Charles N d, and Henry had again 

6 



^w* 



122 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

risen up in his place, close to the iron-railing, and was 
watching with intense anxiety for the effect of the 
note on the young barrister. He opened it, and his 
eye glanced over its contents. I could see that it had 
given him some information which was quite new to 
him ; for he stared at the paper, read it again, and 
instantly rising up, he begged to ask whether Charles 

N had been positively identified and sworn to, as 

one of the men who had attacked and entered the 
farm-house. It was a strange question to ask at that 
stage of the proceedings, and if I remem.ber rightly, it ' 
drew forth some disturbed remarks from the attorney 
for the prosecution. But the judge settled the matter 
at once, by ordering the principal vv^itness to be re» 
called. The farmer's daughter again appeared, and 
took her place in the witness-box. She was desired ta 

look at the prisoner named Charles N d, and ta 

say on her oath, whether she had actually identified 
and sworn to him, as well as to the other prisoners^ 
on her examination before the m^agistrates. She look- 
ed at him as she was bidden, and then with the same 
mild, modest demeanor, and the same clear, firm voice 
in v/hich she had before spoken, she said that she cer- 
tainly had not sworn to Charles N »d before the 

magistrates. '' Could she identify him now?" She 
said distinctly, she could not. The testimony she had 
before given had been of a more general character, as- 
to the guilt of the prisoners at the bar. She had not 
been asked if she could identify them separately, and 
she had only answered the questions which were put 
to her. 

This circumstance, however, led to the acquittal- 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 123 

of Charles N d. The other men were found guilty 

—but, though not a person in the court entertained a 
doubt of his guilt, he had been tried by the law of the 
land ; and he received the full benefit of that law, 
which had brought no legal evidence against him. 

The prisoners were removed from the dock. I 

looked towards the iron railing for Henry N d. 

He had again disappeared. I instantly rose up, and 
in a few minutes I was standing by his side in the 
open air. The gate before us opened, and his brother 
Charles came forth — no longer a prisoner, but as free 
as ourselves. Henry said nothing to his brother, but 
passing his arm. through that of Charles, he earnestly 
entreated me to accompany them. We passed quick- 
ly through the crowd ; we turned away from the lar- 
ger streets, and threading our way through several 
narrow lanes of houses, we reached at length a small 
hovel, for it was little better, in one of those lanes, in 
the outskirts of the town. There we entered — its 

tenant was a relation of the N ds, and Charles 

and his brother were received with a hearty welcome. 
The door was shut, and then Henry turned to me, and 
with a grave countenance, and with a voice of deep 
emotion, requested me to kneel down with them and 
offer up their humble thanksgiving to G-od, for the ac- 
(juittal of his brother ; and added with still greater 
earnestness, that he hoped I would also pray that Grod 
would give him grace to take warning by the danger 
he had just escaped, and to become a new creature, 
and lead a new life. 

Charles N d was grave, and thoughtful, and 

there was a subdued and humble spirit about him, 



124 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

which I had never seen before. He seemed to be much 
affected, when, on our rising up from prayer, I spoke 
of his heart-broken mother, whom he was never more 
to see on earth. 

Bat the impression made on that memorable day- 
was neither deep nor lasting. I left the brothers 
too^ether — Charles did not return to H ^h. 

His convicted associates were condemned to be 
hung. At their execution a circumstance took place, 
which caused some sensation at the time, and was 
nearly attended with fatal consequences to the chaplain 
and the governor. They were standing with the pris- 
oners and the executioner, on the platform under the 
gibbet ; when the drop gave way beneath the weight 
of those upon it. Some of the party were precipitated 
to the ground, and as it might be supposed, a frightful 
confusion was produced — the wretched men, however, 
for whose escape this plan had been laid, v/ere secured 
and executed. 

It was discovered that the rope which held the 
drop, had been nearly cut through. Some months 

after the execution of his companions, Charles N d 

was again taken up for another robbery, and was 
condemned to transportation for life. It then came 
oat that he was the daring fellow, who had secretly 
cut the rope of the drop, thus making a last effort to 
rescue his associates if possible from their fate. 

But Charles N d had many more companions 

in iniquity, besides the three who were then hung. 
The gang was in fact a large one, and formidable, not 
only from its numbers, but from the vile and desperate 
character of many who belonged to it. Old B n, 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 125 

as he was usually called, the father of a large family, 
was, with one exception, perhaps the most depraved 
and hardened of the gang. It was said that he had 
brought up his children to the trade of thieving, and 
some of them were certainly adepts in the odious craft. 
One or two by G-od's preserving grace, eecaped the 
family contagion. His son G-eorge was a most daring 
offender- — ^his likeness to the best portraits of Lord 
Byron, was remarkable, though his features were finer, 
and the shape of his head, and the expression of his 
countenance, more noble, and more strikingly intelli- 
gent. His frame was well-proportioned, powerful and 
muscular, but the most extraordinary part of the 
likeness was the same deformity — a club-foot. 

G-eorge B-- , (his Christian name and initials 

were the same as that of the poet,) was however, a 
villain of no common order. He had married a pretty, 
but bold young woman, who had been born and brought 
up at the parish poor-house ; but becoming tired of 
her, he formed an attachment to a young girl, whose 
appearance was peculiarly repulsive. I well remem- 
ber the wretched wife coming to me one evening, in 
an agony of consternation and alarm. She had nar- 
rowly escaped being poisoned by her wicked husband. 
He had insisted on inviting the girl of whom I have 
spoken, to drink tea with them ; and contrary to his 
usual custom, he had chosen to make the tea himself. 
It was a warm afternoon in summer, and their table 
was placed in the yard, near the door of their house. 
After putting the tea into the teapot, he took the 
teapot into the house to fill it with water from the 
kettle on the fire, and his wife afterwards recollected 






126 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

that she had seen him put something into it, from a 
paper he had in his hand. She was surprised by the 
unusual kindness of his manner, and by his pouring 
out her tea for her, and pressing her to drink it, saying 
he hoped she would find it to her liking. She did 
drink some, and a feeling of sickness came immediately 
over her. The paper which she had seen him empty 
into the teapot then suddenly occurred to her, and her 
suspicions were awakened for the first time. She 
said nothing, but observed that neither her husband 

nor Betsy D , had drank any of the tea, and when 

she asked them to do so, the former looked confused. 
The girl was about to drink, but he would not let her. 
The wife however, was then seized with such burning 
pain, and another attack of vomiting so violent, that 
she felt she had taken poison. Some of her neighbors 
came to her assistance ; she pointed to the teapot, but 
the husband seized it and threw its contents into the 
gutter. The cup however from which she had drunk, 
and in which some of the tea still remained, had been 
put aside, unobserved by him, and in that cup a white 
powder, which proved to be arsenic, was found settled 
at the bottom. There could be no doubt of the fellow's 
guilt, but his wife refused to come forward as his 
accuser, and the affair died away. She left him, and 
returned to the poor-house ; and not very long after- 
wards, he was taken up for robbery, sentenced to 
transportation, but died before he embarked for 
Australia. 

There was one of that notorious gang, who ex- 
ceeded all in the depth of his depravity, and in his 



DESPtiRATE CHARACTERS. 127 



consummate hypocrisy. He was indeed for many years 
entirely unsuspected by any one. 

My first acquaintance Y>^ith him commenced, when 
I was summoned to his bed-side, Y/here he lay crippled 
and distorted with rheumatism. He appeared so 
palsied with weakness in the back, that he was unable 
to raise himself in the bed. His wrists were twisted 
outward, and his fingers so contracted, that he had 
lost the use of them, and could not even fasten a but- 
ton of his clothing. He expressed much pleasure on 
seeing me, and his words were smoother than oil. He 
was skilled in the cant of a religious phraseology, and 
was a fluent talker. His wife was much younger 
than himself; her manners were quiet, and her ap- 
pearance neat and rather pleasing. He begged to be 
raised, that he might sit up, and we lifted him up 
with some difficulty, for he was a fat heavy man ; his 
wife seated herself upon the bed, behind the bolster, and 
remained there propping him up with all her strength, 
while I read the Bible^ and prayed with him. Perhaps 
he did feel some anxiety for the time, about his eternal 
state — I would not say he did not — It is not for man 
to judge his fellow sinner, no, not even a hypocrite. 
At that time I suspected nothing. I went away not 
liking his specious smoothness or whining voice, but 
heartily feeling for his bodily suffering, about which 
there could be no mistake. 

After I had left H h, for a curacy in Kent, I 

returned to pass a week with my kind old friend, the 
rector ; and one of the first inquiries I made, on going 
out to visit some of my sick and aged friends among 
the poor, was for Cornelius D ^ I heard then for 



128 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

the first time a strange, sad story. That old and mis- 
erable cripple — ^that mass of feebleness and distortion, 
had been taken from his bed to prison, and tried for his 
life at Bury. It had been discovered that he was the 
leading villain of the gang, and a kind of amateur in 
his craft. It was proved, that at the dead of the night, 
he would often cause himself to be dressed by his wife, 
— for he had not strength in his fingers to put on, or 
even button his clothes — and laid on a heap of straw 
in a cart, he would go out with a portion of the gang 
to their scenes of midnight depredation, giving his 
directions to the party how to proceed, and initiating 
the young and inexperienced in the mysteries of their 
iniquity, — of course claiming and receiving — perhaps 
it was really on this account that he went with them 
— his portion of the booty. He was tried and con- 
demned to transportation for life ; but, worn out by 
the exhaustion and sufferings which he had undergone, 
he died in the cart in which they were carrying him 
to Portsmouth, where he was to have been put on 
board the convict- ship. 

There was another of the gang, John M n, a 

fine spirited fellow, but bold, bad and reckless, giving 
himself very little concern as to who knew, or did not 
know, the evil course he ran. On one occasion he 

came up to the kind-hearted Rector of H h, in the 

public street, and said, " Pray do you say that I stole 
a sack of wheat from your barn ?" He had heard 
that the Rector had spoken of him as a suspected per- 
son, and he had the hardihood thus to dare him to the 
accusation. 

Not long after this, he attacked and robbed a man 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 129 

- — as it was said — on the highway, and struck him 
sonie frightful blows on the head. He was taken im- 
mediately, and sent to prison, tried for his life, found 
guilty and condemned to be hanged. I went over to 
Bury to visit him, and at the wish of the Chaplain, who 
was old, and in infirm health, I agreed to take his 
place in the cell and on the scaffold, with my wretched 
parishioner. The day for his execution was fixed. 
On the previous morning, when entering the prison, 
the figure of a man standing in the gateway, attracted 
my attention. I did not wonder, when told who and 
what he was, that I felt a kind of instinctive horror 
at the sight of him. " That man. Sir," said the gov- 
ernor, " is the hangman ; and he is so inveterate a 
drunkard, that we shall have to shut him up in close 
confinement all night, to keep him sober and ready for 
the execution to-morrow morning. VVe could not employ 
him except on that condition, and as he receives a large 
fee, he allows himself to be looked up." I have before 
me now the image of that most forbidding figure, his 
countenance, his manner, and the very dress he wore ; 
the flat cadaverous features, the small eyes with their 
cunning twinkle, the wide mouth with a perpetual 
smile circling the thin compressed lips ; the lank, 
dark, greasy hair, smoothly plastered down over his 
low forehead ; the short-necked, broad-set frame ; the 
loose thread-bare blue coat, with a greasy glaze upon 
the cuffs and elbows, with large tarnished brass but- 
tons ; the breeches of dark green velveteen, with the 
same greasy glaze on the knees, the cotton stockings 
of a dingy white, and the high-low shoes upon his 

broad splay feet. He was the chief executioner in the 
6# 



130 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

kingdom, the Jack Ketch of Newgate, and sent for 
whenever an execution took place in the provincial 
towns. He had come from Norwich that morning, 
and as the worthy governor told me, was out of humor, 
because the man whom he had been summoned to 
hang, had been reprieved He had just been complain- 
ing of the interruption he had met with, saying that 
it was a hard thing that businsss was not allowed to 
go on in its proper course. In my disgust at what I 
heard, I could not resist going up to him, and telling 
him gravely, how glad I was to hear that the execu- 
tion at Norwich had been stopped, and that it ought 
to be a subject of congratulation to him, that he was 
spared, at least on that occasion, the dreadful office 
of taking away a fellow-creature's life. But he was 
a match for me ; and made some unmeaning reply 
with a soft and oily voice. It was evident that he was 
fully conscious of being a person of importance. He 
was extremely civil, and some days after, when I 
knew him better, and happened to ask his name, he 
replied, glibly ; '* Thomas Foxon, at your pleasure, 
Sir ; shall I write it down ?" 

As I stood conversing with him, and thought of the 
character he bore as an habitual drunkard, and that 
the office which he held was one which separated him 
from the sympathies, and almost from the comipanion- 
ship of his fellow-men, the irresistible disgust with | 
which I had at first shrank from him, was changed 
into a deep and unaffected compassion. ' Does any 
one,' I said to myself, ' feel for, or even think of the 
spiritual necessities of this wretched man ? Is there 
one friendly voice to remind him of that awful day 



Ti 



S^ESPERATE CHARACTERS. 131 

when lie, who has been the executioner of the sentence 
of the earthly judge, shall stand side by side with the 
convicted criminals who have died by his hands, before 
the tribunal of the great Judge of heaven and earth ? 
Has there been one to point out to him that meek and 
innocent Jesus, who also died under the hands of the 
executioner ? Has there been one to beseech him to 
seek and find a Redeemer and Deliverer, now, in Him, 
who shall come hereafter to be our judge; even in 
Him who died for our sins and rose again for our jus- 
tification V Mildly, but earnestly, I put the question 
to him; '^Have you ever thought of that day —are 
you prepared for it— when you also will be forced to 
leave this world, and to stand side by side with those 
who have died by your hands ; and when you yourself 
will have to answer, as well as they, before the judg- 
ment-bar of the great God, and our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and to give an account of the deeds done in the 
body ?" 

But alas ! I found it impossible, so far as T could 
judge, to make any impression upon that impenetra- 
ble man« He was not in the least angered or pro- 
voked. The arrow which had been shot forth, pierced 
not the rhinoceros-hide, grazed not even the surface, 
but glided ofi*, leaving it as smooth as if it had not 
touched it. With his usual smile, and with a tone of 
trawling softness, he said, *' I love to hear you talk. 
Sir, and dear me, how pleased ray wife would be, if 
she could hear you ; she is a very religious woman." 
I said no more. The insinuating smile with which he 
met my grave and earnest look, the drawling voice 
and maudlin manner sickened me to the very heart. 



132 BESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

I turned the subject and said, '* I anm anxious to know 
under what circumstances you could have been led to 
undertake your present office." '^Why, Sir," he re- 
plied, " it was just this — when Bellingham was hanged 
— as you may remember,. Sir, for the murder of Mr, 
Percival in the lobby of the House of Commons — they 
hired my cart to convey the body, and soon after, the 
place I fill, was vacant. Well, I thought to myself^ 
why should not I come forward, and apply for the sit- 
uation. You know. Sir, there must be some one to 
execute his majesty's laws, some one w^as wanted for 
the place., for his majesty's laws must be executed ; 
don't you think so?" T could only reply in the affirm- 
ative. " But it must have been a painful office to 
you," I said. '^ At first. Sir. Yes, at first ; but use. 
Sir, — one gets used to it. I did feel very queer, and 
odd for a time or two ; but I go through it now as a 
matter of business ; it is my busine&s, and I flatter 
myself that I am a skilful hand at it, and I can save 
the poor creatures from a deal of suffering, by my dex- 
terity and experience. AYhy, Sir, only the other day 

when I was down at an execution at E , there 

was another man employed in my place at Newgate^ 
and he did not fasten the rope in the right way, the 
knot should be under the ear, but it slipped round and 
got under the chin of the poor sufferer, and it was a 
^ad piece of business, for he had to struggle and suffer 
^vhen he might have died in no time !" He went on 
to speak of two or three executions with a kind of en- 
thusiasm in the business which I could not have be- 
lieved any human being, with human feelings, conld 
possibly have felt ; but that he did feel it, I could not 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 133 

doubt. I heard him in silence, wondering within my- 
self — my disgust increased, but my mind was uncon- 
sciously interested by so new, and yet so loathsome an 
exhibition of human natifte. I might have thought^ 
had I not seen his unchanging smile and witnessed 
the fondness with which he dwelt on the details of an 
execution, that he had fled to drunkenness to banish 
thought ; but had my reader heard him speak of those 
details — I do not give them here — as if he looked back 
to them with a positive complacency, he would agree 
with me that the feelings of that man were never 
shocked by the horrors of the scaffold, and of the 
death-struggle. 

Many years after I was invited by the Chaplain of 
Newgate to attend a well-known criminal, Daniel 
Grood, under sentence of death for a murder of the 
most horrible description. I was not present, I am 
happy to say, at the execution ; but I went to New- 
gate immediately after, to learn if the murderer, of 
whose guilt no one entertained a doubt, had made the 
confession we had anxiously looked for, and there I 
saw the executioner who is now employed — a thought- 
ful, manly person, whose grave and benevolent 
expression of countenance was a remarkable contrast 
to that of poor Foxon. I may also mention, that before 
an execution which took place lately at Chester, the 
executioner was observed by the matron of the city 
gaol, on his knees in earnest prayer, in an empty cell. 
But I return to my narrative. With a feeling of 
relief I turned away, and proceeded to the condemned 
cell. The massive doors were unbolted and unlocked, 
and, at my especial request, I was left with the 



134 DKSPERATE CHARACTERS. 

prisoner. His downcast looks brightened for a mooient 
when he saw me enter ; and he thanked me warmly, 
when I told him that I had come to remain with him 

to the last, and should not l^ave him. except for half 
an hour, to take some refreshment which had been 
kindly offered me, at the governor's house. I found a 
respectable-looking and well-educated man with John 
M — n. He had been tried and sentenced to imprison- 
ment for some fraudulent transactions, and the High 
Sheriff had wisely ordered that he should be placed in 
the same cell with the condemned man till the execu- 
tion took place. This man had borne a high character, 
and appeared to be really contrite for his sin. Sir 

H B . the High Sheriff, had desired him to 

read the Bible to his companion, that while his presence 
might be thus made a comfort to the condemned pris- 
oner, he might at the same time be obliged to realize, 
in some manner, the awful consequences, even on 
earth, of that course upon which he had him.self 
entered. 

AVith these two men I passed the remainder of the 
day — with them I was shut up for the night, and with 
them I read and prayed from time to time. It was a 
solemn season to us all. and one which I trust was 
blessed of God to us. The sun was to set for the la.st 
time upon one of the party that night, and that was 
to be his last night on earth. Before his death I had 
a good hope concerning that once bold and ungodly 
man, and reason to believe that he died a sincere 
penitent, deeply humbled before Grod for his many 
and great offences, and meekly trusting in that gi'a- 
cious Redeemer, whose precious blood cleanseth us 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 135 

from all sin. His time for self-recollection and self- 
examination was short, but his conviction of sin was 
deep and genuine. He was, I felt convinced, in 
downright earnest, and he was brought to confess that 
he was a great sinner, and to believe that Jesus Christ 
saveth to the uttermost all who look to Him, and call 
upon Him. 

During these long hours, much conversation took 
place ; and I heard from John M — n many of the 
events of his past life. His parents, he told me, had 
endeavored to teach him what was right, and to set 
him a good example ; but there was an old man, a 
near neighbor, who had tempted him to become a thief, 
even when a little child, and had promised and given 
him halfpence for any thing that he could steal and 
bring secretly to him_. When he grew up to be a 
youth, he became a poacher, a sabbath-breaker, and 
at length a robber. ''Ah, Sir," he said to me, " how 
I wish I had attended to your kind warnings when 
you used to see me hanging about with a set of idle 

fellows at the corner of A — 1 Street. I did not care 

then, and I laughed at your warnings. But if I had 
listened to you then, I should not now be here, in this 
condemned cell. But I would not work, I idled about, 
or slept all the day ; and when night came, I took my 
lurcher, which I kept tied up in the yard at the back 
of my house, and went out after the hares and 
pheasants. I shall never forget. Sir, the first night, 
when I went with some of our gang to commit a 
robbery. We broke into a mill, and I had to carry a 
sack of flour. I bore the load with ease, but there 
was a feeling within which I could not bear ; for 1 



I 



136 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

was not hardened then, and I shook with alarm, and 
stopt and looked about me almost at the rustling of a 
leaf, or the risings of the wind ; every sound appeared 
to me as if there was some one at my heels. But my 
companions laughed and jeered at me ; and I sooa 
became as bold and as reckless as any of the party. I 
remember, for instance, not long ago, how careless we 
all were, when we Vv^ent to rob Mr. D 's malt- 
house : this we did every week. As it happened our 
light went out, and as there was no place where we 
could safely light the lantern, at that hour, for it was 
past midnight — but at my house, we sent one of the 
fellows thither for that purpose. Now my house, as 

you know. Sir, is at the end of B n, and a full 

mile from the malt-house. The man was gone for at 
least an hour ; and would you believe it. Sir, we all 
sat lauo^hino: and talkino^ too^ether durino: the whole 
time, in the malt-house. One of the sleeping rooms 
of the family was close over our heads, and we heard 
the loud snoring of some one above us all the time." 

He dwelt much on the way in which his Sabbaths 
had been spent, and told me, how he and his party 
had altogether forsaken every place of worship, and 
indeed profaned the whole sacred day. '^ Our Sun- 
days were always our worst days," he added ; ^' and 
often, when part of your congregation were coming 
into the town to church, they met us going out for the 
poaching and the thieving of the day." 

The governor came for the last time to the door, to 
tell me, that he was about to lock me up for the night 
with my companions, and when I heard the clang of 
the heavy bolts and of the locks, as the two massive 



i 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 137 

doors of the cell were fastened one after the other, and 
every sound had died away— the first object that met 
my eye was the gleam of a large knife, which lay on 
a stool beside me — but I smiled at the idea of fear 
from either of the prisoners — though I could not help 
feeling that if they meditated any plan of escape, and 
I should attempt to prevent it, I might have wished 
that knife farther off. It was a curious circumstance 
that some hours afterwards John M — n began to speak 
on this very subject. ^^Had I known. Sir," he said, 
after a pause of silence, which had continued some 
time — '^had I known that the trial would have gone 
against me, and that I should have been condemned to 
die, I should certainly have made an attempt to es- 
cape. Life is sweet, and I am going to die." '^ My 
poor friend," I replied, " you might have made the 
attempt, but you cannot suppose that in a prison like 
this, with its solid walls, and its many doors, and its 
high enclosures, you could have had a chance of suc- 
ceeding." He had been sitting with his head bowed, 
and his eyes fixed on the stone floor — but he raised his 
head, and looked me in the face and said — '^ A few 
weeks ago, one of my fellow-prisoners did escape," and 
he then described to me the method which the man 
had taken — and he added, " high as the walls were, 
he raised himself to the top of them, and had got clear 
off." He rose up and walked to the window — and 
stood gazing, as it seemed to me, upon the bars of 
thick and solid iron, firmly imbedded in the deep stone 
mullions of the window — he said something to his fel- 
low-prisoner, about the possibility of removing bars, 
even as stroni!: and firm as those. But I called off his 



138 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

attention, reverting to the prisoner who had lately es- 
caped, and merely asking the question ; '^ Is he not 
likely to be retaken ; and supposing such were the 
case, you may conceive what his feelings would be, 
w^hen brought back to this place ?" " He was retaken, 
Sir," he replied gravely ; '^ after wandering about, and 
hiding himself in the fields and Vv^oods for a few days, 
he was seized at some distance, and brought back on 
the top of the coach ; and since then he has been heav- 
ily ironed, and has lost much of the liberty and com- 
fort which he had before, in common with the other 
prisoners." Here a silence again ensued : it was 
broken by his asking me if I would look at my watch 
and tell him the hour. I did so ; and he said ; " The 
watchman must have fallen asleep, for he has not 
cried the hour for some time." — I should here men- 
tion, that as hour after hour passed from the time that 
we had been locked up, we had heard the prison watch- 
man, as he went his rounds, calling out the hour. He 
then alluded again with seeming carelessness to the 
subject of escape, remarking that it would be a good 
opportunity to take, when the watchman was off his 
guard. '^ But is it not likely," I asked, ''that this 
may be done on purpose ? May he not have been or- 
dered to go his rounds sometimes in silence, and some- 
times to call the hour, that the prisoners may never 
be able to calculate the exact time of his passing by 
on his rounds ?" I had hazarded this remark, which 
had suddenly occurred to me ; but on mentioning the 
circumstance to the govornor the next morning, I 
found that I was correct in my surmise. Poor fellow, 
it was evident, that the thought of escape, however 



DESPERxVTE CHARACTERS. 139 

unattainable, was passing across the mind of M — n ! 
It was very natural, for the prison-gates were only to 
open to him, that he might pass through them to the 
scaffold and to death. I called off his attention how- 
ever to that subject, which I felt was the only one of 
real interest and deep importance to him, and which I 
felt was the only subject that could calm his troubled 
thoughts at such a season. I begged him to sit down 
and listen to the message which the Lord Grod had 
sent me to deliver to him, and with much gentleness 
he complied : and we were soon occupied in the quiet 
consideration of Grod's most gracious word, and in 
prayer. 

The dead silence that succeeded at that solemn 
hour, was suddenly disturbed by the loud and repeated 
blasts of a horn, which, from the silence of everything 
around us, seemed to be close at hand. Again and 
again that horn was sounded, and a short time after 
it had ceased, the bolts of the doors of the cell were 
withdrawn, and the door itself was thrown open, and 
the governor appeared. " A king's messenger has 
arrived from London," he said; " and the execution is 
put off till we receive further commands. He has 
brought a respite — not a reprieve — for you, my poor 
fellow, I fear I can hold out no hopes of that. But 
the execution will not take place to-morrow, so the 
best thing you can do is to go comfortably to bed. 

'' The bed that was prepared for you, Sir," said 
the governor to me, after we had quitted the cell, *' I 
am sorry to say, is engaged. My brother arrived sud- 
denly at a late hour to-night, and we gave him the 
chamber which we hoped you would have occupied. 



140 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

And now, Sir, I know not where you will find a bed, 
except indeed at the ' Angel,' for that Inn must be 
open, as the king's messenger is gone there." 

I replied, that I should easily find my way to the |i 
Inn, and declining the offer of the governor to send 
some one with me, I told him I would set off without 
loss of time to the ' Angel.' But when the prison-gates 
had closed against me, and I stood without, looking 
forth into the dark night, I began to fear it would be 
no such easy matter to find my way to the Inn. I 
was almost a stranger to Bury, and all that I knew 
was that I had to turn to the right hand and not to 
the left — and that the ' Angel' was nearly a mile, 
through a wide open suburb, from the gaol. But the 
night was perhaps the darkest I ever remember, and 
not a light was to be seei?. In the prison, and locked 
up in the condemned cell, I had not felt the slightest 
fear ; but out of the pri?m, and in the open road, I 
began to be alarmed by tho very reasonable fear that 
I was likely enough to Icso my way, and to wander 
about till morning. I thought for a moment of ring- 
ing the bell at the gate, auvl asking for a guide, but 
on second thoughts — I made 'ip my mind to plunge 
into the black darkness, and mak.^. the attempt to find 
my way, as well as I could. xVni so I walked forward , 
at a brisk pace ; and at length, v/i^i: ro little pleasure, » 
I saw the Angel Inn full before mv). The door stood 
wide open, and a gleam of light from within, stream- 
ed brightly down the steps into the darkness, and in 
a few moments afterwards, I was quietly seat**,d in a 
small parlor near the door, conversing with the k^B^'s 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 141 

messenger about the respite of my wretched friend, 
John M n. 

Mr. S h the magistrate, by whom he had been 

committed for trial, had found out that a false state- 
ment had been made in the evidence brought before 
him against the prisoner. He had been tried and 
found guilty, and condemned to death on the charge 
of robbery, with cutting and maiming on the King's 

highway. Mr. S h had called on me to take him 

to the spot, which being in my own parish, I knew 
well. He there found that the assault had been com- 
mitted not on the King's highway, but in a stack-yard 
by the road-side — where the hat of the prisoner had 
been picked up, and where the marks of a struggle 
were then to be seen on the ground. Feeling deeply 
for the youth of the prisoner, and deploring the severity 
of the sentence, the kind-hearted magistrate — though 
an aged man, and in a feeble state of health — had 
gladly availed himself of this error in law, to take up 
a statement of the circumstance, and a petition that 
the prisoner's life might be spared, to Sir Robert (then 
Mr.) Peel, the Home Secretary. He had himself gone 
to London, and afterwards to the Isle of Wight. The 
Home Secretary, or the Judge, Chief Justice Abbot, I 
forget which — being at the time out of town. Refer- 
ence was to be made to the Judge according to the 
usual custom — and a respite was sent down express 
by a king's messenger to Bury, to defer the execution 
till the decision of the Judge could be known. 

Early on the following morning, I returned to the 
cell of the prisoner. The governor, a peculiarly kind 
and humane man, had agreed with me, that so far 



142 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 



^ 



from encouraging the slightest hope of a reprieve in 
the prisoner, we would endeavor to impress upon him 
that he must only look upon the execution of his 
sentence as suspended, not reversed. But, alas ! we 
found that it was not in the power of man to extin- 
guish the hope of life, which had been revived in his 
breast. He said, in words, that he could not expect 
that his life would be spared, but his altered looks and 
manner, and every now and then an expression which 
he dropped, betrayed the fact that he did expect to be 
spared, and he afterwards confessed to me that his 
hopes had got the better of his fears. I passed the 
chief part of that day with him. I was called out on 
one occasion ; I found that it was to see the mother of 
the prisoner, and to explain to her that her son's 
execution, though delayed, would most probably soon 
take place. 

The poor broken-hearted woman had made an effort 
to come herself with a cart to take away the body of 
her son. Dreadful as the thought was to her, that 
she should find only his stiff and bloated corpse on her 
arrival, she had felt that the worst would then be over, 
quite over ; and with a burst of feeling at once natural 
and contradictory to nature, she could not help lament- 
ing, that if he were to die, his death was still hanging 
over her, that the terrible trial was not past, it was 
yet to come. In a state of stunned and speechless 
distress, slowly, almost mechanically, she drove away 
from the gate of the gaol. An immense crowd, which 
had assembled to witness the execution, was at the 
time dispersing, and before I could turn away, another 
cart drove up : a woman had come to the prison to 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 143 

have a wen rubbed by the hand of the dead man ; 
believing, in her stupid and disgusting superstitiouj 
that the hand of a corpse that had been hung would 
remove it. 

I left Bury that evening to return home for the 
duties of the next day, which was Sunday, but a letter 
from the governor soon after called me back to the 
gaol. The day for the execution was again fixed. 
The Chief Justice had not thought fit to recommend a 
reprieve, and the prisoner was to die. When I entered 
his cell, he had already heard the sad tidings. His 
manner was calm and thoughtful, but he welcomed 
my return with delight, I was struck with a remark 
that he made. It was a pleasant day, in the lovely 
month of August, and the v/indow" of his cell stood 
wide open ; a winged seed of thistle-down floated in 
through the window, upon the soft breeze, into his cell. 
He watched it as it entered, and he said, " Ah ! foolish 
thing ! you know not where you are coming, or you 
would not come here. 0, if I were you, how glad I 
should be to fly far away from this place ; I should 
never have done what you are doing now^ !" 

If I had thought only of the mortal life, and the 
mortal suffierings of the poor prisoner, I might have 
regarded the respite as a cruel and bitter aggravation 
of his trials, but the All- wise disposer of every event, 
without whom not a sparrow falleth to the ground, 
had, in the graciousness of His mercy, ordered and 
overruled it for his good in the highest sense. I have 
no doubt, but that the delay was made a blessing to 
his immortal spirit. 

The night that preceded his execution, and on 



144 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 



which I was again shut up with him and his com- 
ponion in the condemned cell, found him in a far more 
softened state ; not a word was said of an escape, but 
with a manly and composed spirit, he seriously pre- 
pared himself to die. His thoughts seemed to be fully 
occupied with the one subject of deep and vital 
importance, not only to him, but to every living, as 
well as to every dying man. There is a wide dif- 
ference between having to set the simple scheme of J 
the gospel before a careless and indifferent person, andi 
one listening to it in deep and intense anxiety. AYho 
can doubt that more was learnt in that one memorable 
night, within the walls of the prison of Philippi, when 
the trembling and convicted gaoler fell down before 
Paul and Silas, crying : " Sirs, what must I do to be 
saved ?" more was learnt of vital and saving know- 
ledge by that heart-stricken man, than has been 
acquired during the whole course of a life by many 
who have, through a long series of years, heard exactly 
the same glorious truths in a sprit of utter unconcern ; 
caring nothing, seeking nothing, and therefore knowing 
nothing, finding nothing, while hearing every thing. 

The poor condemned prisoner was indeed one who 
thirsted for the waters of life : and it was my blessed 
privilege to lead him to the fountain of living waters, 
of which our Lord has testified, that " whosoever 
drinketh, shall never thirst :" to remind him of our 
Redeemer's gracious words, — ^'If any man thirst, let 
him come unto me and drink." I must confess that 
I have no sympathy with those morbid sentiments, 
which have been occasionally brought before the pub- 
lic, in connexion with the accounts of the last hours 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 145 

of the most infamous criminals. To say nothing of 
the bad effect upon the public mind of throwing a kind 
of sentimental interest round some monster of wicked- 
ness, whose atrocious deeds have filled every heart 
with horror, the statements themselves which I have 
seen, have too commonly afforded most unsatisfactory 
evidence as to any real and vital change in the sub- 
jects of them. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted 
that some of the vilest and worst of men, under sen- 
tence of execution, have been truly and savingly con- 
verted to Grod even at that, their eleventh hour ; so 
that to use, with all seriousness, the words of the 
Apostle Paul, " where sin abounded^ grace did much 
more abound." Poor John M n had been a dar- 
ing offender against the laws of G-od and man ; and it 
pleased Grod in His great mercy, not only to stop him 
in his evil course, but to bring him to feel and to ac- 
knowledge his iniquity. From my acquaintance with 
him, I saw that he possessed qualities, which, had 
they been rightly trained, might have rendered him a 
noble character. The abhorrence with which he re- 
garded his past life, was, I trust, that of a genuine re- 
pentance ; and the earnestness with which he sought 
for forgiveness through the blood of Christ, sprung, I 
firmly believe, from a true faith. But even if I were 
enabled to recal the details of my conversations with 
him in his cell, I should not do so : I should leave 
them to the privacy in which they took place. Some 
things I may mention : for instance, his deep anxiety 
that those of his former associates, who were still at 
large, and that every young man with whom he had 
been acquainted, might be urged to take warning by 



146 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

his example and his death. He spoke to me more 
particularly of one or two individuals, deploring their 
hardened state, and he entreated me to address the 
people of H gh froru the pulpit, on the Sunday- 
after his execution, on the subject of his crimes and 
of his end. He begged also that I would request his 
parents to put a head-stone over his grave, and to write 
the inscription myself, and that it might be placed in 

the church-yard of the village of R y, by the side 

of the path, so that it might be read by those who 
passed along to the house of Grod. It was this church- 
yard, he told me, that the gang with which he was 
associated, had used as their rendezvous. Thither 
they had come from various parts of the neighborhood 
to their midnight meetings, and from thence they had 
gone forth to their scenes of burglary and plunderc 

The village of R y is about two miles from 

H gh, and the church is on the summit of a hill 

above the villasre. 

Hour after hour passed away in that condemned 
cell ; we heard the watchman's voice at intervals, as 
before, T3ut no horn again broke upon the stillness of 
the night. Those awful hours however were sancti- 
fied, I humbly trust, by the word of God, which was 
solemnly read aud expounded, and by the prayers 
vdiich were breathed forth from the hearts of those 

who offered them. About midnight, poor M n 

proposed retiring for a few hours to one of the tvv^o 
small sleeping cells, adjoining that in w^hich we were 
sitting. I asked him to bring his mattress and lay it 
down beside me ; but he thanked me, and said that 
he should feel no uneasiness at being alone. 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 147 

His companion withdrew also to the other cell ; 
and with my Bible open on the table before me, I be- 
gan to employ myself in preparing the sermon which 
I was to preach to the prisoner and the other inmates 
of the gaol a few hours after. The dead stillness 
which prevailed, — the time, — the place, — the dreadful 
event which was coming nearer and nearer with every 
passing hour — all combined to produce a feeling of 
awe that was almost oppressive. But the single light 
which shone out in that gloomy cell, threw its rays 
upon the glorious record of the love of the eternal Grod 
to his fallen guilty children — that living word which 
revealed Him as a Father, reconciled to the vilest sin- 
ner through the blood of His own Son, and meeting 
the trembling, dying penitent, with this declaration of 
inexpressible comfort, " Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved," silencing every fear 
and every doubt with this assurance, " Whosoever shall 
call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved." It 
is in such dreary seasons that the power, which the 
Holy Scriptures alone possess to elevate the sinking 
spirit and to cheer the heavy heart, is most sensibly 
experienced. It is in the deepest earthly gloom that 
their heavenly light shines forth most brightly. And 
so I found it on that night of gloom and sorrow. It 
was impossible not to feel an intense and agonising 
sympathy with that poor condemned prisoner, — impos- 
sible not to identify oneself, in some measure, with 
his wretchedness ; and what should I have done, how 
could I have attempted to support and comfort him, 
without that Book of books — that Word of life, to 
which I could appeal as almost to the Lord God Him- 



148 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 



self, for the authority of all that I set before His guilty 
servant ? 

The language of his contrite heart might be truly 
described by that well-known confession, " I have sin- 
ned against the Lord :" and it was my high privilege 
to bring before him, from that word of truth and life, 
that message of Divine authority, " The Lord hath put 
away thy sin." It was indeed a season of awful, but 
holy, quietness to me ; it seemed to say, " Commune 
with thine 01071 hearty and in thy chamber, and be 
still." No sound broke upon that hallowed stillness, 
but the voice that told that another hour of the prison- 
er's short span of mortal life was gone : and from 
time to time, the melancholy boom of the bittern dis- 
tinctly heard through the midnight air, from the low 
grounds beyond the gaol. About an hour before day- 
break, however, a dull, heavy, yet ringing sound, like 
the fall of a ponderous hammer, startled me from my 
quiet meditations ; it was repeated ; and as it con- 
tinued, I guessed, and guessed truly, from whence it 
proceeded. The scaflbld was being erected for the 
execution of my companion, without the walls of the 
gaol. It would be difficult to describe the effect of 
those deep muffled strokes, as they continued to fall ; 
and the associations they brought with them. I list- 
ened in breathless anxiety to discover whether the 
poor prisoner had been disturbed by them ; but all 
seemed quiet in his narrow cell, and I hoped that he 
had not heard them. But when he joined me again 
at six o'clock, he told me that he had been awoke by 
those appalling sounds, and that he knew what they 
meant. The two following hours were passed with 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 149 

our Bibles and in prayer ; and at eight o'clock, the 
governor appeared, and invited me to come to break- 
fast at his house. I v^as unwilling to leave poor 
M — — n ; but I felt that it w^as necessary to take 
some refreshment, to enable me to go through the 
arduous and painful duties which were now before me. 

After breakfast, we proceeded to the chapel, where 
all the prisoners were assembled for the service. Near 

the spot where poor M n was standing, was the 

cofFm in which his body was soon after laid, with the 
pall spread over it. But there it was my privilege to 
speak of Him who hath taken away the sting of death, 
and spoiled the grave of its victory ; and to set forth 
Christ crucified as the power of Grod unto salvation 
to every one that believeth ; even to the chief of 
sinners. 

After the service, the governor requested me to re- 
turn for a short time to his house ; and it did not 
occur to me at the time to ask the reason of his request. 
I regretted that I had not done so : for it would have 
been a comfort to me to have stood beside the prisoner, 
during that short but trying time. The change in his 
appearance, when I again joined him, T had not anti- 
cipated, and it greatly shocked me. His own clothes 
had been substituted for the prison-dress, in which I 
had been so long accustomed to see him. But he was 
heavily ironed with gyves between his legs ; his wrists 
were pinioned before him — his neckcloth removed, 
and his throat partly open, and on his head a white 
tasselled nightcap. His countenance was grave, but 
very calm. He was waiting for me, the governor said, 
hoping that I would go round the gaol with him, as 



150 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 



he wished to take leave of his fellow-prisoners, and 
say a few words to them for the last time. 

It was a deeply affecting sight, to see him, 
prepared as he was for immediate execution, stop 
successively, before the iron palisades of the several 
yards where the various inmates of the gaol were 
asssembled : but I was astonished to hear the short 
and admirable warnings which he addressed to them 
as he passed along. It would have been difficult to 
have found words more to the purpose than those 
which he spoke. I remember particularly his few 
affectionate words to a youth of sixteen, whose tearful 
and ingenuous countenance contrasted strongly with 
those of his companions. " My poor, poor boy," he 
said, and his voice shook with emotion ; '' this is the 
first time that you have ever been in this place ; let it 
be the last. Take warning by me. You see what 
Sabbath-breaking, poaching, and thieving have brought 
me to ; and I began as you have done ; and now I am 
going to be hanged like a dog." 

While he was thus speaking, I caught for a moment 
the glimpse of a dark forbidding countenance at the 
farther end of the yard — the man saw me, and was 
skulking away into his cell. " Come forward," I 
called out to him, addressing him by name. It was 

old B n, the fellow-townsman of the poor prisoner, 

and one of the same gang — that man of whom I have 
already spoken, who had brought up his children in 
iniquity, and who was now himself under sentence of 
transportation for life. ''Come forward; for if any 
one in this gaol needs the warning of the sight, and 
the last words of one going forth to the scaffold, it is 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 151 

yourself. Your life is spared ; but those who know 
you, are well aware that though unfit and unprepared 
to die, your guilt has well deserved the same sentence. 
You have time given you to seek for pardon and for 
grace ; and God in His mercy grant that you may 
seek it, before it be too late.*' 

''I have one favor to ask of you, Sir," said poor 

M- n, as I walked beside him to the gate of the 

gaol, on our way to the scaffold ; '' will you promise 
me not to leave this place till my body has been cut 
down, and you have seen my coffin put into the cart, 
and driven av/ay to my father's house ?" I need not 
say how readily T made the promise v/hich he required 
of me, — ^' I will not quit you for a moment, my friend,'' 
I added ; ^' I wish that you could lean upon my arm, 
as easily as I am willing to offer it to you. This 
indeed he was unable to do— for his hands being 
pinioned, he was not at liberty to raise them, but I 
walked close to him, and took care that he should feel 
from the pressure of my arm to his, that a faithful 
friend was close to him. '^ Now pray for strength in 
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," I whispered, as 
the great gates were thrown open, and we went forth 
among the crowded thousands who were assembled to 
witness the execution. " Now pray for strength, and 
go on praying." '^ I will — I do. Sir !" he replied, with 
a low but firm voice. '' God give you strength," I 
continued, '' for Christ's sake. Think of the sufferings 
of .Jesus for you — your sufferings are as nothing 
compared with His, and He was innocent. He had 
done nothing worthy of death ; but He died, the inno- 
cent for the guilty — for you and for me — that he might 
brins: us to God." 



152 DESPERATE CHARACTERS, 

A lane of constables with their staves in their 
hands, had been drawn up from the gate of the gaol 
to the scaffold, and they kept the mob off, and the 
passage between them clear, so that we passed along 
without interruption. The execution took place in a 
green meadow, under the prison-walls, on the side 
towards the open country. I can even now recall the 
sickness of heart which came over me, when, on 
turning the corner of that high wall, the scaffold stood 
full before us. It was the first I had ever seen, it was 
only raised perhaps twelve or fourteen feet from the 
ground, and its nearness to the people — I could 
scarcely tell why — threw a kind of familiar horror 
over it. There were two ladders leading to the low 
platform of the drop. When we reached the foot of 

one of them, and M n was about to ascend, there 

was some short delay. The governor asked us to wait. 
I saw that this waiting was a trial to the prisoner. 
But he was enabled to master it, and still to keep up 
that manly, but quiet courage and self-possesion which 
marked his whole demeanor to the last. I could rejoice 
in it, because I knew from whence it sprung, even from 
that renewed nature, which I fully believe God had 
graciously implanted in him, and which, considering 
his former life, was a marvel indeed, for he was as 
one born in a day. But oh, it was a deeply affecting 
sight to behold that fine young fellow, in the very 
prime of youthful manhood, his finely-developed form, 
and firmly-knit limbs, his fresh healthy countenance, 
in all the vigor of life — he was but six-and-twenty — 
before me ; and to know that in a few minutes he 
would be a motionless and bloated corose. I watched 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 153 



him closely ; never turning ray eyes from him ; and I 
saw that his knees did not shake or even bend under 
him, as he slowly ascended the steps to the scaffold. 
I followed him, while the governor mounted by the 
other ladder. In less than a minute, the executioner 
had sprung up from behind, and was occupied in 
loosening the shirt-collar, and laying bare the throat 

of poor M— . I saw his eyelids move, and his lip 

quiver as the knot of the rope was adjusted round his 
throat : but with a strong effort, he seemed as it were, 
to gulp down the agony of feeling, ere it prevailed. 
At the desire of several persons, I had delayed till now 

to speak to John M -n, on a circumstance in which 

it was supposed he had been concerned ; the death of 

a young tradesman of H gh, who shortly before 

was found drowned, under suspicious circumstances, 
one winter's morning. I had no thought in my own 

mind, that poor M n had had any thing to do with 

this mysterious affair ; but I put the question to him, 
and asked him to answer, as one on the very brink of 
eternity, and whose spirit was about to appear within 
a few minutes, in the presence of the Lord Grod. He 
solemnly assured me, and I believe he spoke the truth, 
that he knew nothing of the matter, and that he was 
quite innocent of it. I then asked him to speak as 
loudly as he could, and to declare in the hearing of all 
the people his innocence of the charge as in the sight 
of Grod. But, poor fellow, it was impossible : his 
voice, firm as it was, had lowered to a whisper ; he 
made the effort, but in vain ; and he asked me to speak 
for him. After I had done this, I placed my hands on 
his, and pressed them in an affectionate farewell. 



154 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

whispering a few words to encourage him and to urge 
him to continue in prayer to the very last, and I told 
him again that I should not quit him, but stand where 
I was, till all was over. The cap was now drawn 
down over his face. I had agreed with the execu- 
tioner beforehand, that he should not cut the drop till 
I had given him the signal ; and told him that I should 
continue reading, and should not cease till after the 
drop had fallen ; the signal was, that I should let fall 
the white handkerchief which I held in my hand. I 
commenced reading aloud those beautiful scriptures, 
which are placed at the beginning of our burial ser- 
vice. I read no other part of the service ; but began 
again repeating them, for I wished that no word but 
the living word of God should sound in the ears of the 
dying man at that awful moment. While I was read- 
ing, for I did not stop, so that he knew not the exact 
moment when his death should come upon him, I let 
fall the handkerchief. Whatever it cost me, I was de- 
termined not to turn away, or to flinch from the pro- 
mised duty. The kind-hearted governor had partly 
descended from the platform, and stood weeping like 
a child on the ladder ; the drop had fallen ; but I was 
standing aloft and alone, with my eyes steadily fixed 
on the dying man. T saw his head drop on one side, 
and an inward flutter rise upon his open chest. I 
caught a glimpse of the executioner below, skilfully 
hastening his horrid work. The death-struggle was 
but for a moment, and all was over. 

And now I turned away. I would not once look back, 
as I slowly returned to the gaol, disgusted with the 
shouts and laughter which rose from some quarters of 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 155 

that immense crowd. I requested that I might be 
summoned after the body had hung its appointed hour ; 
and the cofRn had been fastened down, and placed in 
the cart. 

I was glad to be alone : and I was hastening to 
the chamber which the governor had offered to my 
use, when I met the hangman. With all my aversion 
to the very sight of that man, I could not resist going 
up to him, and thanking him in warm terms, for the 
humanity and skill with which he had performed his 
dreadful office. His wonted smile became unusually 
expansive, as in his softest tones, he expressed his 
satisfaction at my approval, and held out his hand to 
shake mine. I instinctively drew back, I felt that I 
could not bear the touch of that hand, hot and reeking 
as it was with the sweat of his office : but a second 
feeling told me, that he would receive more harm from 
the uncivil disgust of my spirit, than I should from 
the grasp of his hand, and I shook his offered hand. 

Hitherto I had been enabled to bear up, and to be 
firm and composed : oftentimes the struggle had been 
severe : but I had conquered myself by saying : How 
dare I think of my own feelings, or indeed of myself, 
for a moment, in any way, in the presence of one 
whose actual sufferings it is impossible for me, or any 
man but himself, to enter into. The relief however 
was unspeakable, when having locked the door of that 
chamber, and being alone with Grod, I could give way 
to my pent-up feelings, and thank Him for the strength 
which He had given me ; and above all, for His un- 
speakable mercy, and most tender compassion to the 
soul of that guilty man, — but I trust also, that brother 



156 DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 

in Christ — who had now entered into his eternal 
state. 

I saw the coffin placed in the cart ; the mother 
had not been able to come a second time : but a friend 
and neighbor had taken her place : and the body of 
John M n was driven away to the father's house. 

On the day following, I preached the funeral ser- 
mon. The church of H gh is one of the largest 

in the kingdom; but the crowd — the most dense that 
I have ever seen in any church— was so jammed to- 
gether, that it was with difficulty I could force my 
way from the vestry to the ])ulpit. It was an oppor- 
tunity not to be lost, and I trust that it was graciously 
blessed of G-od to many that were present. During 
the sermon, my eye fell here and there upon some of 
the associates of the departed man : I knew this from 
his own lips, for he had named several of them : and 
though I would not have divulged those names, I could 
not forbear^ — when I spoke of his guilt, of his fate, and 
of his repentance unto life — fixing their eyes for a 
moment, and then plainly declaring, that some of his 
companions in crime were standing around me at that 
very time. And oh, how fervently do I still pray that 
each of them may prove^ as he was, a brand plucked 
from the burning. 

The wife of poor John M n had been deeply 

attached to him : and his untimely death quite turned 
her brain. It was a piteous sight to see her, wander- 
ing about the town with her infant in her arms, and 
sitting upon the steps of the houses and talking about 
her husband, by turns weeping, or laughing in her mad- 
ness. She did not long survive her husband's execution. 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 157 

Three and twenty years have passed away since 
that execution. I had left the country shortly after, 
for distant parts of England. It was only a few 
weeks ago, that my present school-master was passing 

through the picturesque church-yard of K y where 

the mortal remains of John M — — n lie buried. He 
was attracted by a head-stone, at the side of the path 
by which the people of the village pass to the church. 
He stopped to read the inscription. An aged woman 
was standing by the grave at the time, whose sorrow- 
ful countenance he noticed ; they fell into conversation^ 
and she spoke to him with tears of her son's death ; 

and he found that she was the mother of John M n : 

but her tears, he told me, were changed to smiles of 
pleasure, when she learnt from him, on the mention of 
my name, that he was living in my present parish, 
and was my school-master. He brought me many an 
affectionate message from her ; and he brought also — 
what I had forgotten — a printed copy of the letter, 

which John M n had sent to his wife, and which I 

now remember I had written on the evening before he 
suffered. The letter it seems, had been printed for 
circulation, of which I had been ignorant. 

" Bury Jail, August 19, 1825. 
" My Dear Wife, 

*' I write to you for the last time, to bid you an 
eternal farewell It is the Almighty's good pleasure 
that I should suffer the punishment due to my crime. 
I have been a great sinner, and acknowledge the 
justness of my sentence, but I hope that I am sensible 

of my awful situation, and have made the best use of 

7# 



158 BESPERATE CHARACTERS. 



the time that has been allowed me ; and that I shall 
die calm and composed, trusting for pardon and for- 
giveness from my Grod through the merits and medi- 
ation of my Redeemer, Jesus Christ ; and that I am 
leaving a world of care and sorrow, for mansions of 
eternal peace. I also trust that the Almighty will 
protect you and my poor fatherless babes. I hope that 
you will not grieve for me, but put your trust in G-od, 
and bring up our children in a religious way, and that 
they may avoid the bad snares that brought their 
father to his untimely end. I hope my father and 
mother and all my friends will be kind to you ; and I 
also hope that those who were my wicked companions, 
and all those who are now pursuing the same evil 
ways that I did, will take warning by my fate. It is 

my wish to be buried in K y church-yard, and 

that my father will let me have a grave-stone. The 
Rev. Mr. Tayler, who has been very, very kind to me, 
has promised to write my epitaph. Give my love to 
m.y poor father and mother, also to my brothers and 
sisters ; tell them not to grieve for me, as I hope I 
shall be happy in heaven. Cut oft' a lock of my hair, 
and keep it in rememberance of me. Once more I 
say, take care of my poor babes, and, believe me, my 
dying prayer will be for you and them. I forgive my 
prosecutor and all my enemies, and die in peace Vv^ith 
all mankind. I hope that Thomas Gr — ^ — *will never 
forget the dreadful situation he has been in, and that 
wherever he may spend the remainder of his days, he 
may be sensible of his late wickedness, and become a 

*The felon sentenced along with M , but reprieved. 



-X 



DESPERATE CHARACTERS. 159 

good man. I have only to repeat my farewell, hoping 
that the Almighty G-od will bless you and our children, 
my parents, brothers and sisters, and all my friends j 
and remain till death 

Your affectionate Husband, 



A day or two before my school-master brought me 
this letter, v^^hen arranging some old papers, T found 
and opened a small sealed packet. It contained the 
prayer book and the cambric handkerchief which I 
had used at the execution ; and with them was a. 
small bone whistle, which the dying man had given 
me ; and by which the notorious gang had been often 

called together to their midnight meetings, in K y 

church -yard. I could but look upon that whistle, as 
a trophy of the victory won by the gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, over the kingdom and power of Satan. 



CHAPTER XL 

AMUSEMENTS. 

*'It was very hot at the opera last night. The pit 
was much crowded !" These were the first words of 
a friend after our salutations at meeting were over. 
We met in a railway carriage, and we had not seen 
each other for many years. He was one of the kindest 
and gentlest of human beings ; it would grieve me to 
hurt his feelings by any remarks of mine, probably he 
has forgotten those careless words. I would fain hope 
that were we to meet as^ain — and we have not met since 
that short interview — he would not talk about the 
opera. If however he should remember his remark 
and recognize himself, he is kind, and he will forgive 
me. Nay more, he will forgive my saying now, what 
I felt and ought to have said then, had I been a faith- 
ful friend — namely, how pained I was to hear that he 
had not overcome his former love for the idle vanities 
of a world at enmity with Grod. We were both minis- 
ters of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were both no longer 
young men, but of some years standing in the sacred 
ministry. I well remember that within the year of 
my ordination, I had also once gone to the opera ; but 
I did hope we had both learnt the sinful inconsistency 
of all such ways, even with the bare profession of the 
sacred office which we held. Those who grow in grace 



AMUSEMENTS. 161 



and godliness, must out-grow all such tastes, and 
abjure all such practices. '' A clergyman by his 
character and design of life," says Bishop Burnet, 
^' ought to be a man separated from the cares and con- 
cerns of this world, and dedicated to the study and 
meditation of divine matters. His conversation ought 
to be a pattern for others, a constant preaching to his 
people. He ought to behave himself so well," he adds, 
''that his own conversation may not only be without 
offence^ but be so exemplary^ that his people may have 
reason to conclude, that he himself does firmly believe 
all those things which he proposes to them ; that he 
thinks himself bound to follow all those rules that he 
sets them, and that they may see such a serious spirit 
of devotion in him, that from thence they may be in- 
duced to believe that his chief design among them, is 
to do them good, and to save their souls ; which may 
prepare them so to esteem and love him, that they may 
not be prejudiced against anything that he does and 
says in public, by anything that they observe in him- 
self in private." 

A becoming and unaffected gravity is indispensa- 
ble in him whose office it is to set before the people 
the awful realities of the things of Grod, and to urge 
upon them the claims of a Redeemer, whose own blood 
is the only fountain in which their guilt can be cleansed, 
their sin expatiated. He who has received his com- 
mission to '' Feed the Church of God, which He hath 
purchased with His own blood," must, above all other 
men, beware of lightness ; and therefore '' gravity" is 
especially recommended by the Apostle Paul ; 1 Tim. 
iii. 4, 8, both to the bishop, and to the deacon ; nay 



162 AMUSEMENTS. 



even to the wifi3 of the minister. We can only attribute 
it to want of thought, when any levity of mind, or 
inconsistency of life, is found in a minister of the 
sanctuary. But, want of thought is in itself utterly 
unbecoming in one who has undertaken a charge of 
such awful responsibility ; and will not stand him in 
stead on that great day when the chief Shepherd shall 
appear, and the question will be asked ; " AVhere is 
thy flock that was given thee, — thy beautiful flock ?" 
'' We look not at the things which are seen," said 
the Apostle, " but the things which are not seen ; 
for the things which are seen are temporal, but the 
things which are not seen are eternal." " "We walk 
by faith, not by sight," and " faith is the evidence of 
things not seen," as well as ''the substance of things 
hoped for." If such should be the walk of every mem- 
ber of the church, how much more imperatively is 
such a walk required of him whose office it is to be, in 
himself, " an example of the believers, in word, in 
conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." 
Whatever may be the opinion of some clergymen them- 
selves on this subject, the children of the world are 
usually clear-sighted to perceive, and sound in judg- 
ment to condemn, whatever is inconsistent between 
the office and the life of the minister of the gospel. A 
foreign minister, who is now an elder in the church, 
and whom I have long known and loved for his con- 
sistent piety, told me that soon after he had entered 
upon the ministry, before he had realized the respon- 
sibility of his office, h -is dancing on one occasion in 
a ball room at Lausanne. The celebrated Madame 
de Stael, who was present, came up to him at the 



AMUSEMENTS. 163 



conclusion of the dance, and said to him in a low 
voice, — '' You will never make a good minister of the 
gospel — you live too much in time — a minister of 
Christ should live out of time !" 

I had a college friend, a kind-hearted, but careless 
youth, and one whose course at Cambridge was 
marked by no peculiar excellence, though devoid of 
every thing like impropriety. After we left college, 
we sometimes met, and he wrote to me a long and 
friendly letter, in which he expressed a wish that our 
intercourse might continue. I had no particular wish 
that it should not ; but I remember saying to myself: 
" Here is one who is so light-minded, that though I 
cannot speak otherwise of myself, his acquaintance 
cannot be profitable to me in any way." I did not 
answer his letter : and though I somictimes reproached 
myself afterwards for a want of courtesy towards him, 
I did not regret that our intercourse had come to an 
end. He had also entered the ministry. About 
eighteen years afterwards, we met again : and we 
met as friends who rejoiced to meet after a long sepa- 
ration. But he had not spoken many words, when I 
found that I was in the company of another man. 
The voice and the countenance were the same, but the 
mind and spirit were those of a renewed creature. 
There was a gravity and earnestness about him, which 
delighted, no less than it astonished me. The tone of 
his mind had formerly appeared to me of a common- 
place description ; but I now found in him that spirit- 
ual elevation, which usually imparts originality and 
refinement to the whole man. I saw that he was a 
decided and a devoted servant of Christ ; and I hailed, 



1 64 AMUSEMENTS. 



with real joy, the renewal of our early intercourse. 
But, alas ! it was not long to continue. But one or 
two letters were exchanged between us, when I heard 
the sad nevv's of his sudden death. Before his depart- 
ure, however, I, as well as many others, had read the 
remarkable account of that wondrous change which 
God had wrought in him. He had printed it in the 
hope that the- narrative might be made useful to others 
as careless and worldly as he had once been. No one, 
who had been himself the subject of such a change, 
could read it without feeling a deep and affectionate 
interest in the writer. He had, for several years after 
his ordination, been accustomed to mix in worldly so- 
ciety, and to join in worldly amusements. A young 
man who was under his pastoral care was considered 
to be in a dying state, and had been visited by him 
during his illness. His life was spared ; and when 
almost in a convalescent state, he begged to consult 
his minister on a subject which he told him had caused 
him much uneasiness during his illness. The Lord, 
he said, had heard his prayers : and when he consi- 
dered the way in which he had spent his time before 
his illness, he could not think that he was restored to 
health in order that he might return to his former 
course of life, but that he might dedicate himself to 
the service of the Lord. He wished to learn his pas- 
tor's opinion on the subject, and to ask his guidance. 
My friend was as one confounded by the words of that 
young man. He saw at once that it was impossible 
to give him any other advice but that he should follow 
up his own convictions, and live on his return to the 
world, as one who is not of the world. But he felt, 



AMUSEMENTS. 165 



that if he gave such advice, he should in so doing, be 
condemning himself. He felt that he himself was still 
of the world ; and that whatever his words might be, 
his walk, if it continued what it had been, would be a 
direct contradiction of them. There was, however, 
but one thing to be done : and he told the young man 
that he must renounce the world : and with God's 
grace, follow his Divine Master through the straight 
gate, and in the narrow way, bearing his cross. And 
he went home a self-convicted man. He went home 
to resolve that he also, by the same divine grace, 
would, from that moment, give up the world, and that 
his life should no longer present the glaring inconsist- 
ency, which it had hitherto done, between his profes- 
sion and his practice. 

This resolution was not lightly made, or lightly 
followed up ; and he considered that under G-od, the 
change, which from that time took place in him, might 
be attributed to the anxious inquiry of that member 
of his own flock. No sermon that he had ever preached 
to his congregation had been so useful or so blessed to 
them as the question of that member of his congrega- 
had been to himself. 

The whole course of his life from that time forth 
was that of a bright and shining light. His views of 
divine truth had become clear and experimental : his 
aim single : his former lightness of manner exchanged 
for the gravity and earnestness becoming his sacred 
profession. The corn was ripening for the garner : 
and He who had strengthened it at the root, and 
matured it by His genial influences, put in the sickle 
and gathered it into His garner. 



166 AMUSEMENTS. 



A fact like that which T have just stated, must 
not be regarded as the optional decision of one who is 
at liberty to walk either in the broad or in the narrow 
way. To say nothing of the whole tenor and spirit 
of holy Scripture on this subject — and its language is 
alike decisive and authoritative — no clergyman of the 
Church of England is at liberty to follow his own will 
in the matter. He is solemnly exhorted at his ordi- 
nation, '* to consider the great excellency, and great 
difficulty of his office :" and '' with great care and 
study to apply himself unto it," '' as dutifully and 
thankfully unto that Lord, who hath placed him in so 
high a dignity." He is exhorted also *'to beware 
neither to offend himself, nor to be the occasion that 
others offend." He is exhorted, '' to pray earnestly 
for the Holy Spirit," for the will and ability that he 
needs, " that he may frame his life agreeably to the 
Holy Scriptures, and forsake and set aside all worldly 
cares and studies." He is charged, '' to apply himself 
wholly to this one thing, and draw all his cares and 
studies this way." And among the solemn questions 
which are put to him, and which he answers at that 
solemn time, I might merely bring forward the follow- 
ing. '' AYill you be diligent in prayers and in reading 
of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to 
the knowledge of the same, laying aside the study of 
the world, and the flesh ?" The answer to which is : 
'' I will endeavor myself so to do, the Lord being my 
helper." Again, ''Will you be diligent to frame and 
fashion your own selves and your families according 
to the doctrine of Christ ; and to make both yourselves 
and them, as much as in you lieth, wholesome exam- 



AMUSEMENTS. 167 



pies and patterns to the flock of Christ ?" Answer. 
'' I will apply myself theretoj the Lord being my 
helper !" 

AVhat I would ask, is the meaning of these solemn 
engagements, these promises, made, as in the sight of 
Grod, at the most awful period of a clergyman's life, 
when he takes upon himself- — God being his helper — 
the weighty responsibilities of the office of a minister 
of Christ ? The man who means not to fulfil the 
duties he undertakes on this occasion, and yet calls 
Grod to witness that he does mean so to do, is taking 
G-od's name in vain to a degree which it is almost 
frightful to contemplate. He is in fact a minister of 
the sanctuary profanely and deliberately breaking the 
third commandment of the moral law. And the man 
who does take the engagement upon himself in earnest, 
and afterwards in utter unconcern is false to his vows, 
stands before G-od and the people, a perjured man. 
Let the idle flutterer in a ball-room, the more sedate, 
but equally dissipated card-player, the frequenter of 
the play-house, or of the race-course, remember their 
office, and for decency sake, if on no higher principle, 
cease to be a scandal to their sacred profession, not 
only in the eyes of their congregation, but of the world 
at large. These are not light matters, however lightly 
they may be regarded ; they stamp a man either with 
the character of a hireling, or of one whose whole 
ministerial life is one awful inconsistency. They 
lower his tone in the pulpit, and degrade his office 
when out of it. He comes forth to the charge of the 
cure of the immortal souls of perishing creatures, 
professing himself to have been called by the Holy 



168 AMUSEMENTS. 



Ghost, and under a commission by which he stands 
engaged to a perpetual warfare with the world ; and 
yet he is found in the midst of its votaries and its 
vanities, basking in its smiles, and courting its favors, 
with a total disregard of that plain declaration of the 
word of Grod : " The friendship of the world is enmity 
with (xod : for he that will be the friend of the world 
is the enemy of Grod." Let no one say, that I am 
speaking here of what was common among the clergy 
of another generation, but is now of rare occurrence. 
It is, I rejoice to think, less common than it once was : 
but I speak advisedly when I affirm, that such instan- 
ces are fearfully common ; and even among amiable 
and highly respectable men, of whom one would fain 
hope better things ; men who make the grievous 
mistake of supposing that by lowering their standard, 
and making concessions, they shall succeed in winning 
over the worldly to religion, but who are in fact, put- 
ting their own vain wisdom in direct opposition to the 
wisdom of God. I speak as an elder, and from my 
own experience, as having, when a young man, fallen 
into the same error, when I assure my younger breth- 
ren that the worldly were never won over in this 
manner ; and that they will find that, let them make 
what concessions they will, they w411 only have left 
their own vantage-ground, to make advances which 
the world will never come forward an inch to meet. 
The more godly decision they show on every occasion, 
tempered by that gentle sweetness which becomes 
those who are directed to instruct in meekness those 
who oppose themselves ; the more they will win the 
respect of, and the more likely they will be even to 



AMUSEMENTS, 169 



win over their bitterest adversaries. On all such 
points — I speak from experience— I would assure my 
reader, that there is nothing that will clear his way so 
easily, or so effectually, as decision. I could bring 
forward instances if I pleased, when, having been 
placed in such circumstances, I have found the gentle 
firmness of a decided iVb, bring me through difficulties 
which could not have been cleared by any other course. 
Many a young clergyman is at times placed in situa- 
tions where it is extremely difficult, without appearing 
over scupulous, or seeming to cast reflections upon 
others, to avoid partaking in some worldly dissipation, 
or doubtful amusement : let this be his secret test : 
^' Is this thing of the world, or is it not ?" and then let 
this be his open avowal : ^' If it is of the world, I can 
have nothing to do with it." 

^' But putting all other considerations out of the 
question — one thing must be evident, that the minis- 
ter of Christ — -who is required by his high commission 
to be the most earnest and diligent of all men, should 
not have time for such trifling recreations. If he is 
fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, in all things which 
belong to his sacred calling, he cannot, and he will 
find that he cannot, have time for them. 

I remember a blunt honest tradesman who was 
apt to speak his mind in no very courteous way, mak- 
ing a remark which, alas, had too much truth in it. 
^* If a clergyman goes driving about the country, Sir, 

to balls and parties, as Mr. does, he can't have 

time to prepare his sermons ; and then, Sir, he lies 
abed till nine or ten in the morning, and when he has 
been dancing half the night, he can't be stirring about 
8 



170 AMUSEMENTS. 



his work till a late hour in the day, so that he cannot 
give proper time to other duties.'^ 

We are always subject to be exposed to such re- 
marks, and Vv'e little know how often they are made ; 
how often the simplest and even the best intentions 
are liable to be misunderstood and misrepresented 
This is part of our cross, v/hich we must resolutely 
take up when we engage to occupy the position which 
we do. "VVe should therefore be doubly careful, not 
only lest our good be evil spoken of, but lest that which 
ought to be good be evil, and so, being justly censured, 
we bring a scandal upon our profession. 

" No man can serve two masters." This is a 
point of doctrine which almost all clergymen are wont 
to preach from their pulpits. But it is lamentable to 
think that any man who has been upholding this high 
and holy maxim in his sermon, should come down from 
his pulpit to make it evident to all, that he is continu- 
ally attempting to unite the two opposite services, and 
to say by the whole tenor of his life, " I can ;" when 
Grod says : '' Thou canst notP 

There are occasions when a clergyman will feel it 
his duty to enter into society ; but on such occasions 
the rule of a devoted Grerman minister, should be his 
rule : '• I will never go into society but to get good, 
or to do good." 

I do not forget the quiet observation of a christian 
lady. She was speaking of a clergyman whom she 
had met one evening for the first time. '' I was dis- 
appointed," she said mildly, '^ for I heard not a single 
remark from his lips during the whole time that I was 
in his company, by which a stranger might have known 
that he was a minister of Christ." 



AMUSEMENTS. 171 



I have the high privilege of being acquainted with 
many clergymen, from v^hose minds the deep con- 
sciousness seems never at any time absent, whose they 
are, and whom they serve ; and " who exhibit on all 
occasions that indescribable propriety, that modest dig- 
nity, that gentleness and serenity, which is derived 
from the habitual exercise of their profession ;"=^ and 
who seem, I may add, to come down from communion 
with Grod, not with divine lustre, as in the case of 
Moses, actually shining '' from the skin of their faces ;" 
but with a spirituality of look, and word, and manner, 
as evidently declaring its divine source. I am not 
speaking of a look or a manner which has been mere- 
ly assumed for the occasion, but of that spirit which 
cannot be put on- — that which is the clear shining 
forth of the effulgence from within — that which is 
unaffected, genuine, real, and which should make 
ministers of Christ to be living Epistles, known and 
read of all men ; the spirit indeed of those, who are 
wise to win souls, wise in that wisdom which is from 
above, and which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, 
and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits. 
The minister of Christ must never forget his character 
and calling, and must do his utmost to prevent others 
forgetting them. As Cecil remarks — '' The man who 
is seeking a heavenly country, will show the spirit of 
one whose conversation is there. He will do more — 
with the meekness of wisdom, which distinguished his 
divine Master, he will seize every opportunity to win 
all with whom he associates, to seek that better coun- 



' '' Evans' Bishopric of Souls.' 



^- 



172 AMUSEMENTS. 



try. He will seem to say to every one, '^ Come thou 
with us, and we will do thee good." In another place 
the same admirable writer says, " Bring before your 
friends the extreme childishness of a sinful state. 
Treat w^orldly amusements as puerile things. People 
of the world are sick at heart of their very pleasures, 
— nay, they weary themselves for very vanity. There 
is something in religion when rightly apprehended, 
that is masculine and grand ; it removes these little 
desires Vvdiich are ^'the constant hectic of a fool." It 
raises men to an eminence, from which their once- 
bounded view is extended, and where they breathe a 
fresh and bracing atmosphere. It enlarges the narrow 
mind, and gives a death-blow to prejudice and its 
parent, ignorance. 

But to turn from the mere vanities and idle dissi- 
pations of an ungodly world, for the love of which no 
possible excuse can be furnished by one whose calling- 
is as sacred as it is solemn — it should be ever borne 
in mind by the minister of Christ, with regard to more 
intellectual pursuits, that whatever the talents or the 
tastes of the man may be, if that man is a minister of 
our blessed Lord, neither his talents nor his tastes 
should be permitted in any way to interfere with his 
holy profession. In him, above all other men, should 
be seen a singleness of purpose, and a devotedness of 
spirit to one grand object. He cannot indeed have 
entered into any real conception of his high calling 
unless he has learnt to regard it, as containing in itself 
a source of the most absorbing interest, and the most 
exalted delights. He could not, if he might, prefer his 
favorite classics, or his sketch-book, or his musical in- 



AMUSEMENTS. 173 



strument, or his laboratory, or his farm, or his garden, 
to the glorious work of seeking out Christ's sheep in 
the wilderness of this lost world. It may be seen by- 
others that he might have been distinguished as a 
Bcholar, or as a poet, or as a mathematician, or as a 
painter, or as an agriculturist — but it must be seen 
that he is a clergyman — a man of one pursuit, of one 
book, and that book the Holy Bible. It must be evi- 
dent to all that Jesus has met him, as He met the 
fishermen on the lake of Galilee, and said unto them, 
'^ Follow me ;" and that like those highly-favored men, 
he has left all to obey the call, and to follow his Di- 
vine Master. 

Both in the pulpit and in society it is, or ought 
to be, expected of the ministers of Christ, that they 
are to raise the tone and to refine the tastes of those 
around them. If this is not their aim — an aim which 
they are always earnestly pursuing, what are they 
good for ? ^' Ye are the salt of the earth," said our 
blessed Lord, '' but if the salt have lost its savor, 
wherewith shall it be salted ? — it is neither fit for the 
land, nor yet for the dunghill, but men cast it out." 

With regard to the recreation which is in charac- 
ter with the sacred profession of a clergyman, I do not 
think it necessary to speak more particularly. There 
can be no doubt that there ought not to be a possibi- 
lity of a question raised on the subject. The man who 
has taken upon himself the humble, holy vocation of a 
pastor of Christ's flock, has no right to assume to him- 
self the option of living the life of a man of the world. 
He has no option, but to seek — God being his helper 
— to be ever following his Divine Master in the way 



174 AMUSEMENTS. 



ia which He walked, as well as ever pointing Him out 
as the Lamb of Grod which taketh away the sin of the 
world. '' The parson," says George Herbert, '' is ge- 
nerally sad, because he knows nothing but the cross 
of Christ ; or if he have any leisure to look off from 
thence, he meets continually with two most sad spec- 
tacles — sin and misery — God dishonored every day, 
and man afflicted." Christ was indeed '^ The man of 
sorrow I" — as Howell s beautifully remarks — '' Sorrow 
was His element, because sin was ours !" '' I am 
crucified with Christ," said the great Apostle, " never- 
theless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and 
the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith 
in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself 
for me." The minister of Christ is therefore often 
sorrowful, *' as sorrowful yet always rejoicing ;" but 
what is that rejoicing which is thus, as it were, the 
twin-sister of his godly sorrowfulness, and ever in fel- 
lowship the one with the other ? Surely it is raised 
far, far above the vain and painted pleasures, and the 
worthless dissipations of a perishing world. It is the 
calm, sweet cheerfulness of one who lives in the de- 
lightful enjoyment of that peace which the world can- 
not give. I have seen much of the unhappiness, and 
much of the happiness, of human life, but the happiest 
men I have ever met with, the most uniformly cheer- 
ful — I thank God I could name many such — have 
been ministers of Christ. They have seemed to have 
the exhortation of the inspired Apostle ever before 
them, '* Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say 
rejoice : let your moderation be known unto men ; the 
Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing, but in every 



AMUSEMENTS. 175 



thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, 
let your requests be made known unto Grod : and the 
peace of Grod, which passeth all understanding, shall 
keep your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus." 
They have realized, above most other men, the de- 
scriptive maxim of the same Apostle — '' To be spirit- 
ually-minded is life and peace !'^ 



CHAPTER XII. 

A MEMORIAL OF GOD S MERCIFUL PROVIDENCE. 

The evening of the Lord's Day is peculiarly a time of 
rest to His ministers ; for the day itself, though a day 
of rest to others, is a serving-day to us. Joyful and 
blessed our serving is, but it is often laborious and 
fatiguing. At no time does the cheerful quietness of 
my family circle seem so delightful to me as on the 
evening of the Lord's Day. 

The evening prayers were over, and our family 
party had separated for the night. I remained alone 
after every one had retired to rest, that I might see if 
the doors and shutters were closed, and the house in 
safety. As I stood in one of the passages I heard that 
the deep stillness of the night was broken in upon by 
the sudden rising of the wind. A door in the court 
yard was slamming so violently that I went out to 
close it, and I found that the wind had begun to blow 
a gale ; but as our residence stood high, and open to 
the south west, there seemed to me nothing unusual 
in the loud and sweeping wind which blew warmly 
and strongly over my face. 

Before I retired to my own chamber I went, as I 
usually do, to give a passing look to the children of 
the household. 

By the side of one of the youthful slumberers I 
linojered for some minutes. He was then the vouno^est 



A MEMORIAL. ETC. 177 

of the family, and a younger brother's child. My 
mother stood beside me — for he slept in the dressing- 
room adjoining her chamber — and shading the light I 
carried with my hand, we looked down on the calm 
sweet countenance of the sleeping boy. There is some- 
thing very lovely to me in the innocent security of a 
child's repose, the cheek so delicately flushed on the 
side pressing the pillow, the eyelids so lightly closed, 
and the soft regular breathing just parting the rosy 
lips. I rather touched than clasped the little hand, 
carelessly resting on the pillow, and more than once I 
stooped dovv^n to kiss the soft cheek of the unconscious 
child, so tenderly loved b}^ us all. As I turned away 
I heard the roar of the tempest from without ; but all 
was peaceful in the hushed stillness and the soft gloom 
within. 

It was impossible to sleep, nor could I wish to 
sleep during that awful night, and yet I was too 
fatigued not to feel at times almost overcome with 
drowsiness. The wind became louder and mightier 
in its force ; never had I heard such long terrific 
blasts. At times there came a long, long pause of 
deep and awful stillness, as if the tempest were collect- 
ing its strength— like the string of a bow strained 
back, or the mountain-billow drawn down to its lowest 
depths, and thus gathering force to rise to a towering 
height, and to burst with overwhelming power — and 
then the blast came rushing on, and the house seemed 
to rock to its very foundations. Hour after hour passed, 
but there was no cessation of the hurricane. I thought 
of those who were out upon the sea, exposed to its 
wildest fury ; and who could do otherwise than pray 



17S A MEMORIAL OF 



for all such ? But as my spirit turned to Him, ^' icho 
icalketh upon the icings of the zcind,^^ I remembered 
that He is as gracioif^ as He is glorious — as merciful 
as He is mighty. I felt how great a privilege it is 
that we are permitted and indeed invited to commend 
all for whom we ought to pray, to His good providence, 
and to His all-sufficient grace ; and it was then a high 
and holy delight to call upon Him, who, while '' He 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God,'' came in 
the likeness of man, and lived and died among men, 
sharing our griefs and carrying our sorrows. 

I thought of Him asleep in the midst of the storm, 
and I could not help, like the fearful disciples, entreat- 
ing Him to rebuke the tempest, and say, as He said in 
answer to their prayer, *• Peace, be still.'' Oh the 
blessed, blessed privilege to have such a Refuge, such 
a Saviour ! so gentle, so sympathizing, so human a 
friend ! Still the storm continued, when suddenly 
there came one heavy thundering crash, which seemed 
to fall upon the house. AYhat it Vv-as, and where it 
was, I knew not — but I did not stop to think of what 
or where, for I found myself rushing forward to the 
chamber of the child I had left some hours before sleep- 
ing so softly. As I sprung up the stairs, a bell rang 
violently, and then I heard the sound of feet rushing 
backwards and forwards, and loud, frantic shrieks. I 
was in time, and perhaps only just in time. I found 
my mother struggling with all her strength to force 
her way into the dressing-room where the child slept. 
"When the crash came, the partly-closed door had sud- 
denly shut. She could just open it, and was able to 
see the situation of the child, and hear his cries of ter- 



179 

ror ; but all her efforts to enter the room were in vain. 
My sister had also sought the room, and had rushed 
round to the other door, which opened into the passage, 
and she was using all her strength to burst it open, 
but in vain : the door had been locked from within, 
and resisted all her efforts. Never shall I forget the 
whole scene as it then appeared — -never shall I cease 
to shudder when I think of the situation in which I 
found the child — the roof rent wide open to the sky, 
and the heavy masses of brick and timber tumbling 
about me, and the wind, sweeping in, and bellowing 
with its mighty voice ; and the troubled moonlight 
showing to me in the further corner the couch of the 
child almost buried in the ruins. I heard his piteous 
cries, and they brought joy to my heart, for I thought 
at first that all was over, that he had been crushed 
beneath the frightful ruins. He also heard my voice, 
and called upon me by my name ; and with a desper- 
ate effort, which seemed easy to me at the time, I 
forced back the door, which the falling mass had 
almost closed, I sprang forward, and was permitted to 
reach the child. Just sufficient space was left me to 
draw him forth, for the rubbish was as high as his 
chest. In a moment I had drawn him from the room, 
and placed him in my mother's arms unhurt. I had 
no sooner reached the adjoining room, than there came 
another dreadful crash — the whole of the roof and 
chimneys and ceiling, as I afterwards found, had fal- 
len in. But the child was safe, and we were blessing 
G-od with him in our arms, as we hastened with him 
to a place of greater safety. 

Blessed be Grod's holy name ! this was but one in- 
stance among many more, of the mercies of His provi- 



180 A MEMORIAL OF 



dence on that eventful night, that night to be much 
observed in our recollections of His goodness, and our 
thankso:ivin2:s for His deliverances ! 

When I afterwards visited that chamber, I found 
it a ruinous heap of brickwork and timber, bared to 
the open sky. The beam which had been snapped in 
the middle, hung slanting just above the bed of the 
child, and a few large heavy slates were still suspend- 
ed over the spot where his fair head had been lying,— 
a broad mass of the ceiling had fallen, like a smooth 
canopy, upon the wooden parapet which suiTounded 
his Indian crib, and under it his tender limbs had been 
so gently shielded, that the bed-clothes had not even 
been pressed down. Bat on the pillow, just where 
his head had rested, a joist had since fallen, and 
would, probably, have struck his temple with a fatal 
blow. 

From that same room a large and heavy wardrobe 
had been removed only the night before, which other- 
wise must have been forced through the ceiling, and 
have inevitably fallen on another youthful sleeper in 
the room beneath. It had been also proposed, not 
long before, to move the crib of the child to another 
side of the room, to the veiy spot where the whole 
weight of the chimneys had fallen, and where he must 
have been crushed to death. But it was His will w^ho 
hath said, "There shall not an hair of your head 
perish," to preserve us in safety during that awful 
night. He had seemed to whisper this gracious assuf- 
ranee during those hours of danger, Oue^ of our 
family circle assured me that at the awful crisis of 
the tempest, she heard those very words ; — " There 
shall not an hair of your head perish !" spoken dis- 



181 

tinctly as by a human voice, in her ears. I know few 
persons less superstitious than she is-— but she declared 
she never heard any words more distinctly spoken, 
How fervently do I pray, that all we who were spared, 
may live to show forth His praise, not only as we did 
then, with our lips, but in our lives. 

One reflection has been often present to my mind, 
when thinking on that tremendous storm, — that the 
power, beneath which we all trembled in so helpless 
a state, was an unseen power. There is, in fact, 
nothing of all the wonders in the mysterious world 
where Q-od has placed us, endued with such mighty 
force as the invisible air around us ; and yet its 
presence is the gentlest, the most welcome, the most 
sweetly refreshing to man. The delicate flower upon 
the sheltered bank would droop its head, and its ten- 
der leaves would be folded and shrunk in death, if 
unvisited by the playful breeze. We throw open the 
casement and draw back the curtains in the sick- 
room, that the soft air may come and breathe 
over the languid sufferer ; and how often does the 
prisoner in his dismal dungeon raise himself to the 
narrow window of his cell, and lay his fevered brow 
against the bars, that he may draw in some grateful 
draughts of the fresh open air for which he often gasps 
in vain. The common air is, perhaps, the best, the 
sweetest, and the dearest blessing Grod has given us 
here below. In it, to take a low, but I am sure a de- 
vout view of the subject, the mortal man may be said 
to '* live, and move, and have his being." Let it be 
withdrawn for a short season, and the living man be- 
comes a hideous corpse. There is One, my Christian 



182 A MEMORIAL, ETC. 

readers, ^yho is the very fountain of wisdom, and by 
His sacred Avord He has Himself taught us to see in 
the commonest things of earth, images of the highest 
and holiest things of heaven. And as He has likened 
the second person of the eternal Godhead to the re- 
splendent sun, which gives light and heat to all men 
so has He set before us, by the image of the air which 
we breathe, the third person of the same glorious God 
head ; giving us some faint idea of the ineffable gen 
tleness of His influences, and the irresistible mighti 
ness of His power. Yes, from the very lips of Him 
who spake as never man spake, the infusion of spirit 
ual life, in His own way, and at His own seasons, is 
thus simply but exquisitely described, '^ The wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whi- 
ther it goeth : so is every one that is born of the Spi- 
rit." He is the Lord and giver of life, and if you, my 
reader, have not been brought to acknowledge this ; 
if you have not been taught by the word, and by the 
Spirit, that he only is a child of God who hath been 
born from above, there is no life in you. The great 
danger of all, in a nation of professing Christians, is 
this, that every one is apt to think himself already a 
Christian, without looking within, to see if the death 
unto sin, and the new birth and life unto righteous- 
ness have been already experienced there. Oh let us 
all remember, that although it may seem to us that 
we are permitted to trifle with the gentle influences 
of Him who is the Lord and giver of life, there will be 
no resisting His arm when He puts forth His power, 
and ^' ariseth to shake terribly the earth." 



CHAPTER Xm. 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 



About ten years ago, when at H- 1, a peculiar and 

difficult case occurred to me ; one, in which I felt that 
to attempt anything in the usual way would most 
certainly put an end to every hope of success* I 
prayed for direction from above, and my prayer was 
graciously answered* 

Tn one of my walks through a beautiful lane, at a 
point where tv/o roads meet, I observed that part of a 
field by the roadside was cleared for building. Soon 
after a small, but comfortable house had arisen there. 
I inquired of a neighbor, who was to be the future 
resident of that pleasant dwelling ; and was told that 
a Mr. D— — had bought the land and built the house ; 
and that he intended it for his own residence* I was 
naturally anxious to learn something of the character 
of my future parishioner. Little was said, and that 
little in a kindly spirit ; but all that I heard was bad, 
and most discouraging. Common report, as I soon 
after learnt, agreed with the information which I had 

received as to the character of Mr. D •. He was 

possessed of sufficient property to render him indepen- 
dent of the world ; but he was said to be a man who 
had made himself universally feared and disliked by 
his violent and overbearing temper, — a bold, insolent, 
and, if I remember rightly, an intemperate man, and 



184 THE WRITTEN WORD. 

a blasphemer. I was told, and told truly, that he 
took a pride in insulting every one in a superior sta- 
tion to his own, particularly a clergyman ; that he 
never entered the doors of a church, but that he 
sometimes went to a Dissenting chapel, though in fact 
he was the very opposite to a religious man in every 
sense ; and that if he called himself at any time a 
Dissenter, he did so to show his hatred to the Church. 
Some months after, I saw him standing in the middle 
of the road before his door. The house, I perceived, 
had been opened as a beer-shop, and there stood its 
landlord, — a stout, strongly-built man about fifty 
years of age, with a countenance not commonly re- 
pulsive,— a self-willed, reckless man, under whom, I 
could not help feeling, al] the evils belonging to a 
beer-shop were likely to rise to a fearful excess. The 
house soon became notorious for the riotous character 
of its guests, and many of the parishoners complained 
of the noisy and drunken parties which were assem- 
bled there, particularly on Sunday evenings, when the 
loud shouts and coarse peals of laughter of those 
intemperate revellers were often heard from a con- 
siderable distance, breaking upon the Sabbath stillness 
of the green and quiet lanes. 

But this state of thino^s was not to continue lono:. 
The master of the beer-shop was suddenly attacked 
by a dangerous illness, which reduced him in a short 
time to a state of great debility. His constitution, as 
it soon appeared, had received a shock from which he 
never rallied. I heard of his illness, and determined, 
if possible, to see him. He would not bear to be 
spoken to, I was told ; he would repulse me ; he 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 185 

might even insult me. He professed to be a Dis- 
senter, and would deem my visit an intrusion, or 
make that an excuse for declining my visits. I only 
felt that he was a poor, sinful creature, and that he 
was drawing nigh to the end of his guilty and wretched 
course. I determined to make the effort, and to look 
to God for his guidance and his blessing. I knocked 
at the door of the beer-shop. It was opened by the 
mistress of the house, a person of pleasing appearance 
and gentle manners. She replied to m.y request that 
I might see her husband, by leading me to a small 
parlor at the back of the kitchen. There she left me 
with the sick man. He was lying on an old sofa, and 
was evidently very ill, though not much altered in 
appearance. He met my inquiries as to his health 
with an abrupt and bare civility. I sat down near a 
table at some distance from him, and opening my 
Bible, which I had brought with me, I said quietly, 
'' If you please, I will read to you." I know not 
whether ho replied, but I did not hesitate to do as I 
had said T would. I read part of the fifteenth chapter 
of the G-ospel according to St. Luke. I closed the 
book without a single comment, and I knelt down. 
The prayer I offered up was short and simple ; it 
touched upon the guilt and the sin common to him 
and to myself, upon the willingness of the Lord our 
Redeemer to receive sinners, and his power to forgive 
our sins. I prayed that G-od would give us grace, 
under every trial, to say, '' Thy will be done." I rose 
from my knees and left the room. How he had re- 
ceived my visit I knew not. I did not seek to know. 
I had been tolerated ; but whether he had attended to 



186 THE WRITTEN WORD. 

the inspired words which I had read, whether he had 
joined in my prayer, I could not tell. 

The next evening I repeated my visit, and I read 
to him the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Again I pray- 
ed, and again I departed in silence. For many days 
I ])ersevered in the same course ; scarcely a word 
passed between us, but his short reply to the few kind 
words in which, on entering the room, I expressed my 
sympathy with his sufferings, and made some inquiry 
about his health. I continued to read such portions 
of the Word of God as I felt to be most applicable to 
his state ; but I offered not a single remark of my 
own. I prayed, and left him. I thought that once or 
twice 1 could perceive a slight change in his manner, 
but my own manner was unaltered ; kind, but distant. 
My words were few, I asked no question, I seemed to 
take no notice. 

I prayed often, but secretly. I looked to God, and 
God alone, to speak by His own word. I felt that I 
must leave the event entirely to Him. For nearly a 
fortnight, with the occasional interruption of a day, I 
continued these visits. 

How can I describe the deep inward joy of my 
heart, the gratitude of my vvhoie soul to Him who 
heareth prayer, and blesseth means, when on one 
evening, as I was about to depart as usual, I was en- 
treated not to go. The voice that met my ear was 
broken and subdued ; the hard expression of that bold 
bad countenance was gone ; the strongholds of Satan 
had given way, and he who had hardened himself in 
his ungodliness and sin during a long course of resist- 
ance to every inward conviction, had become gentle 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 187 

and teachable as a little child. He grasped my hand, 
his eyes were filled with tears. He spoke of his grati- 
tude and affection for rae. All this I saw with deep 
emotion, and yet all this was as nothing to me ; I saw 
also that which I felt to be alone of importance, of 
real, unspeakable importance, — I saw that he was 
penetrated to his very soul with a sense of his own 
awful guilt before God ! 

AVhen the first burst of his grief and shame had 
somewhat subsided, and he could speak more calmly, . 
he told me that he was a Avonder to himself. He 
could scarcely understand the marvellous change which 
had taken place within him. ^' It is of God," I said, 
'' and it is wonderful, as are all His works, and all 
His ways. "What hath God wrought ; for He, and He 
alone, hath wrought this wonderful change ? I have 
not spoken a word ; it is God who hath spoken, God 
who hath done this." '' Yes," he said thoughtfully, 
and after a pause of silence, " I see it now ; and I may 
tell you. Sir, that if you had spoken one word — ad- 
dressed but a single word of your own to me, when 
you first came to m'C, or for some time after, I could 
not, and I would not have borne it ; weak as I was, I 
should have risen up and tried, even by force, to turn 
you out of my house. I was astonished at your dar- 
ing to come to me ; but you took me altogether by 
surprise. I could not be angry when you called and 
asked, with such a kind voice after my health ; though 
your coming displeased me. You sat down and read 
to me those beautiful words : I knew they were not 
your words, but God's own words, and I was silent. 
You shut the book, and I thought yon would begin to 



188 



THE WRITTEN AVORD. 



reproach me, and tell me \yhat a sinful wretch I was, 
and then would be my time to speak ; but I looked up 
and saw you on your knees, and heard you praying to 
Grod Almighty for me, and then, without another word, 
you were gone." Thus it was that he spoke ; I recal, 
as well as I am able, some of the words which he said, 
but I cannot do justice to them. He was a man of 
strong and superior mind, and well educated for his 
station. I learnt from him, on my next interview, 

that before he came to H 1, some years before, 

when residing at , he had taken offence at some- 
thing that had occurred between himself and the cler- 
gyman of the parish, and had grossly insulted him. 
He had always been a man of strong passions, and of 
a violent, ungoverned temper. " Before that time," 
he said, ''if 1 went anywhere I went to church ; but 
I then made up my mind never again to enter the 
doors of a church. For the hatred I bore my own 
clergyman, I swore a deadly hatred to all clergymen, 
and when I saw you, I hated you because you 
were a clergyman. I longed for an opportunity to 
insult you. I feared no man, and nothing would 
have given me greater pleasure (I use his exact 
words) than to have shaken my fist in a clergyman's 
face. Every thing went well with me in this world," 
he said, on another occasion, '' I succeeded in my bu- 
siness ; I had plenty of mioney, as much or more than 
I wished for. I was independent of the world. I had 
strong health. I am not old, and I thought that I had 
many years to live. I bought this piece of ground. 
I built this house to my own liking, and I came here 
to enjoy myself, and live at my ease for many years. 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 189 

All at once I found myself laid low, my strength and 
my health gone, my money of no use to me, my house 
built, but not for me to live many more months in. 
All my favorite plans had come to pass. I had not a 
wish ungratified. But what good had I got ? of what 
use was all to me ? I was unable to enjoy anything. 
I was about to be taken away from all. I was a 
dying man. My heart was heavy enough, Sir, as you 
may suppose, but it was full of bitterness and anger 
against Grod — affliction did not soften me. You 
came ; and, as I told you, if you had spoken one word 
to lecture me, even in a kind way, or, I may say, one 
word of your own as to my state, which I expected 
you would do, I would have turned you out of my 
house." 

Ah ! my reader, ^' what had G-od wrought ?" His 
word is truly the '^ sword of the Spirit, quick, power- 
ful, and sharper than any two-edged sword — piercing 
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of 
the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the 
thoughts and intents of the heart." ^'* Is not my word 
like as a fire, saith the Lord ; and like a hammer that 
breaketh the rock in pieces ?" Is it not also, '^ as the 
small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers 
upon the grass ?" The powerful and the gentle influ- 
ences of that wonderful word had been brought to bear 
upon the mass of resistance in the heart of that bold, 
bad man. No power short of the power of God, how- 
ever, can change the heart of fallen man. There is 
the same natural and radical opposition to the things 
of God in the heart of the gentlest, and the kindest 
human being, as in that of the most stern and savage. 



190 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 



The carnal mind, under all its disguises, is the same — 
it is enmity to G-od. If any of my readers are sensi- 
ble of mild and kindly affections, and of their own 
gentleness of disposition, but at the same time con- 
scious that Grod is not in their thoughts — that their 
chief desire is not to please Him in all things — that 
they neither love Him nor seek to love Him with their 
whole heart — that, in a word, the precepts of His 
word are not the principles of their lives, let them not 

conclude that the state of Mr. D was necessarily 

more desperate than their own. 

The hours which T afterwards passed with that 
once obdurate and violent man were many, and they 
were among the happiest and the most profitable I 
have ever spent. He loved me with all the warmth 
of his strong affections ; but his love foji» me, much as I 
valued it, was of little moment, — I saw that he loved 
G-od with his whole heart. He knew, he believed, that 
God loved him, that he had given his own Son to suf- 
fering and to shame and to death for him. Ts'ever 
have I witnessed a deeper sense of guilt and sin and 
utter vileness and worthlessness than in that man ; 
never a more earnest desire to be delivered from the 
pollution and the power of sin. He was thoroughly 
aware that he had long been the bondslave of Satan, 
and he often spoke of his anxious desire to be entirely 
freed from his hellish power. One evening I found 
him lying on his bed in a state of quiet, but awe- 
struck thoughtfulness. His look and manner were 
peculiarly solemn. I had often spoken to him of that 
great and inspired assurance, those commands and 
promises so inimitably linked together for our instruc- 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 191 

tion in righteousness. (James iv. 7, 8.) " Resist the 
devil, and he will flee from yon. Draw nigh to God, 
and he will draw nigh to you.''— -'^ He has been here 
and I have had a severe conflict ;" he said, looking 
earnestly upon me as I entered, '' the Evil One has as- 
saulted me sharply, but I have been enabled to resist 
him. G-od has been with me too. G-od is on m.y side, 
and in the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ, I have 
conquered." 

I do not dwell, however, on the state of this re- 
markable man, after it pleased God to turn him from 
darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto 
God. His conversion was unquestionable, and satis- 
factory in every sense. His repentance was evidenced 
not only by a godly sorrow, but by the cDergy of a 
new and spiritual life. He had become jealous for the 
honor of God, and during the short time of his sojourn 
on earth, he endeavored to serve Him with his whole 
heart, and with his whole house. One Sunday eve- 
ning he said to me^ ^^ I hope, Sir, that you found no 
one drinking below. I am afraid that my wife is in- 
clined to admit some of our former customers. She 
knows that I will not allow it, but, I am sorry to say, 
I mistrust her. I have told her plainly that it shall 
not be. The Lord's day shall be kept sacred in this 
house, and the doors shall not be opened. I cannot 
go down to see that she obeys me in this ; but as long 
as I live, I will be master in my own house ; and 
when I am gone I trust she will attend to my desire." 

I was called away from home some days before 
his death, to take leave of one of my brothers who was 
about to sail for India ; when I returned, and before I 



192 THE WRITTEN WORD. 

entered my own doors, I went to the house of my dying 
friend. He did not know me. Death was now very 
near. I knelt beside his bed. I could no longer pray 
ivith him, but I coukl still pray for him, and commend 
his departing spirit into the hands of that great and 
glorious God, who had so wonderfully called him by 
his grace, and revealed his Son in him. It was a 
lovely day in the early part of summer. The trees 
were clothed with their full foliage, but still in all the 
brightness of their freshest green ; the birds were 
singing their wild, sweet songs among the branches ; 
the banks and hedge-rows were bright with the rich 
rose- colored blossoms of the campion, and the lovely 
blue of the germander ; these, and many other flowers 
were there in gay profusion, and all was steeped in 
a flood of glorious sunshine, while the soft fresh breeze 
brought with it on its fitful breathings the exquisite 
fragrance of a field of bean-blossoms. I had left the 
chamber of death, and I was walking slowly and 
thoughtfully homeward, and the contrast of the scene 
without to that melancholy chamber, filled me with 
sadness. I turned to look again towards the friend 
whom I had left. There stood the pleasant dwelling 
which he had built, and there was the window of the 
room in which that once proud, sinful man lay dying. 
His hopes of earthly happiness were all faded, and he 
himself lay gasping in the struggles of death. In a 
little while all that would remain of him on earth 
would be but an unsightly and corrupting corpse. 
But why was I sad ? There were no bands in his death. 
The sting of death was not there. The redeemed and 
rescued spirit would sooa be free. The earthly house 



THE WRITTEN WORD. 193 

of that fleshly tabernacle would be dissolved, and he 
would be absent from the body to be present with the 
Lord. 

There is a passage of the inspired word — one full 
of comfort to the minister and preacher of that word 
' — I saw its accomplishment before me. My readers 
will find it in the fifty-fifth chapter of the book of the 
prophet Isaiah. The Lord G-od is speaking, and 
speaking of his word. He describes the effect of the 
rain and the snow which cam.e down from heaven 
upon the natural earth — in the springing blade, and 
the bud, and the harvest fruitage, by which seed is 
given to the sower and bread to the eater, and he says, 
'' So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my 
mouth : it shall not return unto me void, but it shall 
accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in 
the thing whereto I sent it :" — =1 could not be sad. I 
went on my way rejoicing. 



CHAPTER XIV, 

TRANSFORMING GRACE. 

0.^^ of the most affecting comments perhaps ever 
maae on a well-known portion of the eleventh chapter 
of Isaiah, was given by a poor African woman, a 
newly awakened convert to the Christian faith. She 
had come fram the interior of the country of the 
Bechnana tribes^ and was one of the first thirty disci- 
ples of our blessed Lord in that once dark and barren 
wilderness. She bad been but durinsf two months an 
enlightened and converted believer, but she realized 
the description given by the sacred historian of the 
gentle Lydia — " whose heart the Lord opened, that 
she attended unto the things which were spoken of 
Paul." 

She came to the Missionary on the morning after one 
of their Missionary prayer- meetings — She came and 
said, '^ I have somewhat to say.'^ Her teacher encour- 
aged her to- do so. She hesitated — her modest diffidence 
needed more encouragement, and she received it. She 
said, " I was going to talk to you about the word of Grod 
— ^I could not understand you last night. I never heard 
the word of God as I did last night."' I asked, said the 
missionary, ^' what struck her particularly." ^' Oh ;" she 
replied, " I could not understand it ; it was not what I 
had heard before," The eleventh chapter of Isaiah 



TRANSFORMING GRACE. 195 

was altogether a new subject to this young woman. 
She said, " I have been thinking about it all night. I 
could not sleep." " I asked," he continues, " whether 
it was that portion which I had expounded, or that 
which I had only read!" She replied, ^'what you 
unfolded, I understood, I could not go wrong, because 
you put words into my ears. It was what you did 
not expound." He had only expounded the first five 
verses of the chapter. He asked ; " "What was it ?" 
A tenacious memory enabled her to repeat nearly the 
very words she had heard. * '' The wolf shall lie down 
with the lamb." ' I do not know,' she said, ' what 
kind of wolves they are in your country, but I know 
that our wolves will not lie down with the lambs, till 
they have devoured them all — '' The leopard shall lie 
down with the kid." I do not know what leopards they 
are in your country, but ours will not lie down with 
the kids, till they have eaten them up. Again — " the 
calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and 
a little child shall lead them." Now that is like bear- 
ing the point of one needle on another, it cannot stand 
there ; this is puzzling a person, and I know Grod does 
not like to puzzle us. It makes things altogether in 
confusion ; it makes darkness ; I cannot understand 
it — '' and the cow and the bear shall feed, their young 
ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat 
straw like the ox." This is surprising ! I do not 
know what kind of lions you have, but I know that 
our lions will not eat straw till they have first eaten 
the ox. Bat that which makes me wonder most,' she 
continued, ' is this : " the sucking child shall play on the 
hole of the asp, and the w^eaned child shall put his hand 



196 TRANSFORMING GRACE. 



on the cockatrice den." ' He had translated the cocka- 
trice by the word alienshuane^ a little deadly-biting 
serpent. ' The idea,' she said, ' of a man, or a woman, 
or a child, putting their hand into the hole of the 
sheiishuane^ and living! How can these things be ? 
This is puzzling ; I cannot understand it I' He begged 
her to tell him what she had been thinkinsr about, for 
he saw that she had been thinking. He wished her 
to state the exercises of her mind, and the conclusions 
to which she had come. ' You would only smile at 
me,' she replied. He said, * I will not smile.' ' How 
can you ask me,' she added, ^ the light shines upon 
you from this side, and that side, and behind, and be- 
fore ; you are surrounded with light, but as for me, it 
is only the rays of the sun just rising which light on 
me. Ah, you would only smile at my simplicity !' 
' No, I will not smile. Tell m^e what were your 
thoughts V After some hesitation, she said : ' Do the 
leopard and the lion and the i^lieushuane^ mean men 
and women of such and such a character ; men like 
lions, who have been changed into the nature of lambs, 
and put into the church of Christ ?' Pressing her 
hand to her bosom, the tears trickling over her cheeks, 
she said ; ' ^Yas not I like a M'olf ; did not I possess 
the very nature of the lion ; and the poison of the 
slieushuane^ until this gospel changed this heart of 
mine ?' Ah. she was a noble commentator ! 

But we need not go to Africa, we need not turn to 
some newly-awakened savage for an illustration of that 
glorious prophecy of the transforming influence of the 
grace of God, on hearts as hard and natures as fierce 
as those of the lion of the desert. In the bosom of 



TRANSFORMING GRACE. 197 

our own church, in this most blest and civilized of 
christian lands, the same wild passions, the same un- 
holy violence may too often be found ; and here, where 
we have 'Might on every side ;" to use the words of 
the African woman ; there can be, alas, no light with- 
in, till the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, 
in the face of Jesus Christ, hath shined in the heart ; 
and the transforming power of the grace of Grod hath 
renewed the spirit after the image of Christ. 

I have been the honored witness of many such 
wondrous changes ; and a striking instance now 
occurs to me. 

During a period of six months, at the request of 

my diocesan the Bishop of W , I agreed to take 

the temporary charge of a parish in H — shire. It was 
a small town in one of the loveliest parts of England ; 
and had been under the pastoral care of a truly devoted 
and faithful minister of Christ. But his health was 
delicate, and he had broken down under his arduous 
duties, and was ordered by his medical attendant, to 
seek rest and change of scene for a time, in order that 
he might recruit his exhausted powers. Among the 
members of his flock, whom he especially mentioned 
to me, before his departure, there was one gentleman 
in wdiom he felt a peculiar interest. But after descri- 
bing to me his state of mind, and his rapidly declining 
health, for he was apparently in the last stage of a 
consumption, he added with a sigh of melancholy 
regret ; ' But it would be almost useless for you to 
attempt to see him. I believe he is now in earnest 
about his soul, but his natural character is peculiar, 
and I think he would not see you.' I resolved, 



198 TRANSFORMING GRACE. 

however, to make the attempt to see him, though I 
felt convinced from what my brother Minister had told 
me, and from other remarks which he made as to the 
peculiar disposition of the sick man, that anything 
which he might construe into an attempt to force 
myself upon him, would defeat my object. The way 
that I took was a very simple one ! I called daily at 
his door, and begged he might be told that I had come 
to inquire after his health. My plan succeeded. 
After a few of those daily calls, the servant told me 
that her master had desired her to say, if I called again, 
that he hoped I would come up to see him. I was 
taken to his chamber. It was a lovely day in May, 
and I found the sick man seated by a window which 
looked out over the pleasant garden attached to his 
house. 

I sat down beside him ; and, when my first greet- 
ing was over, I made some remark about that 
pleasant garden, and the wild and lovely country 
which we could see beyond it. With an air of the 
deepest sadness, he said, " The trees and plants are all 
bursting into leaf and flower, but before they are 
clothed in their full foliage, I shall be in my grave. I 
shall see them no more.'' It was but the passing 
regret of the mere natural man. I soon learned, from 
his conversation, that his heart was yearning for a 
better, brighter state, and for a place where the leaves 
and flowers chans^e not as a fleetins: summer-season 
passes away. I soon found, that though troubled at 
intervals by doubts, and disturbed by fears, he was 
looking unto Jesus with a glorious faith in His finished 
redemption and His perfect righteousness. I soon 



TflAKSFORMING GRACE. 199 

saw that he had been truly regenerated by the word 
and the Spirit of G-od, and had passed from death unto 
life, though still in this body of death and corruption. 
Many were the interviews which I afterwards had 
with him, and deep was the interest which he 
awakened in me. He was a remarkable man — a 
clear-headed decided character ; he had always been 
so. What he did, he did heartily and resolutely, but 
he had been, not long before, a bold and violent op- 
poser of the truth ; hating and despising it, and all 
who held it. His spirit was naturally proud and 
overbearing in no common degree, his temper fiery, 
and many of his neighbors had accustomed themselves 
to yield to his insulting conduct, rather than provoke 
'his resentful violence. So brutal and overbearing had 
lie been, that it was said, and I believe truly, that 
because his wife, a very gentle and amiable person, 
whose appearance and manners were peculiarly pleas- 
ing, was lame and v/alked with some diiEculty, she 
had been forbidden by him to walk to church. He 
did not chose that an infirmity, which in fact created 
an interest in her, but which he fancied might be re- 
marked upon, should be seen by others. He had been 
an officer in the navy, and was still a young man, but 
the lines of his countenance showed what its expres- 
sion had once been. He owed any thing that made 
^existence happiness, under Grod, he told me, to the in- 
struction of that faithful preacher of the gospel, whose 
place I then occupied, and who had first mentioned 
him to me. For a long time he had never entered the 
church-doors, nor even seen the minister of his parish, 
but in the streets. On one occasion, he said, he had 



200 TRAJi'SFORMLNG GRACE. 

stopped Mr. M in the market-place, and with a 

loud voice and brutal manner, in the midst of the 
farmers, (for it was market-day,) he had called out, 
'' I wish to know the reason, Sir, why you do not call 
on me. You call, I know, upon my neighbors on both 
sides of my house, why don't you call on me ?" But 
had he called I should have insulted him," he added, 
*• and with his delicate health and arduous duties, 
was ill fitted to bear vrith my violence." He had 
been, he then told me, stirred up to fury, by the ac- 
counts of Mr. M 's sermons, which he had heard 

in the parlor of the inn, where he frequently passed 
his evenings, and he had determined to seek an op- 
portunity of calling him to account for the state- 
ments as to the doctrine and practice, which that un- 
compromising servant of God had put forth from his 
pulpit. " But I will not act unfairly," he had said to 
himself, '' I will do him justice, I will hear him my- 
self, and I will judge for myself, before I attack him." 
He went to church, and the sermon which he heard 
Mr. M preach filled him with rage. This is un- 
bearable ! he thought, and I will certainly see him, 
and ask him how he dares to speak to us in this man- 
ner. He was scarcely able to control his anger till the 
end of the service. The preacher had referred to va- 
rious passages of Scripture, and his impetuous hearer 
had noted down some of them. With the same sense 
of justice, however, on which he had before acted, he 
said to himself, as he walked home, '^ I will look into 
the Bible, and see for myself whether those passages 
are there, and whether he has spoken the truth. I did 
so — I searched for myself ;^' and then fixing his eyes 



TRANSFORMING GRACE. 201 

on me with a look of deep earnestness as he paused 
for a moment in his narrative. ••' I did so — and. it 
vms all true !'' How solemn, how impressive was the 
tone in which he pronounced those fevr words ! I 
thought of the words of the Apostle. ''What was I that 
I could withstand God I" Such vras the deep inward 
conviction conveyed, though not uttered, by that tone, 
and such had been the practical effect produced 
through the unsought grace of the Lord God upon 
the whole future course of his life, by that heartfelt 
conviction. It icas all true; and God had, by His 
own living word, impressed that inspired truth upon 
the conscience of that ungodly and violent man. Xow 
that he had been awakened from the dark dream of 
his whole past life, now that he had been enabled to 
realise his true state as a fallen and lost creature, 
redeemed and rescued by Him, who had comiC down 
from heaven to seek and to save his lost sheep, he was 
filled with anxiety for all who were still out of the 
way. There was one man who had been but a short 
time his friend and associate, one from whose com- 
panionship he had received much injury, for that man 
was an avowed infidel. They could not meet, for they 
were both confined to their sick chambers ; that man, 
as it happened, still nearer death than himself. He 
wrote, however, to his former companion ; he told him 
wnth what horror he looked back on his own past life — 
how deeply he deplored his senseless opposition to the 
only remedy for the hopeless wretchedness of a state 
like theirs! He told him what God had done for hia 
own soul, and he entreated him to search the word of 
life which God had given them, and to seek for pardon 
9=^ 



202 TRANSFORMING GRACE. 

and acceptance with Him through Jesus Christ, whom 
He had sent to save sinners, and give his life a ran- 
som for ours. His affectionate and earnest appeal pro- 
duced no impression. The man died, as he had lived ; 
and the news of his hopeless death was so great a 
shock to his former friend, in his enfeebled state, that 
it was some time before he was enabled in any way 
to recover from it. 

I soon became his constant companion ; for so far 
from not wishing to see me, I found that he looked 
forward for my daily visit with a grateful affection, 
which went to my heart. His bodily sufferings were 
great, and I saw them perhaps at their height ; and 
it was impossible to witness them without feeling, and 
without expressing deep sympathy. My first inquiry, 
on entering his room, was regarding them ; and I sup- 
pose 1 showed, by my manner, that they were not 
matter-of-course w^ords that I spoke, but the import- 
ance of his spiritual state soon drew forth expressions 
of a far deeper interest ; and one day, he said, with a 
look of affection, as he fixed his eyes upon me : " You, 
my dear friend, can, I see, enter into all my feelings : 
and you seem as if G-od had sent you to me, at the 
very time I needed such a friend. One of my kind 
visitors came and stood beside me, looking like an 
angel, and speaking like an angel of God ; but in his 
earnest anxiety for my soul, he seemed altogether to 
forget my poor suffering bodily frame : and another, in 
the tenderness of his feelings, when he witnessed my 
severe pains, though I am sure he never forgot the 
interests of my immortal soul, seemed to occupy him- 
self too much with those bodily sufferings which will 



TRANSFORMING GRACE. 203 

soon be over. But it is so soothing, so comforting to 
see that both are cared for in their right degree." 

Sometimes he was enabled to come down stairs, 
to a small quiet room at the back of his house ; and 
one evening when I found him there, and we were 
quite alone, after I had read and prayed with him as 
usual, before I could rise from my knees, he turned 
towards me, and said with much solemnity, and in a 
deep whisper ; — '' and now would you let me pray ?" 
He took my hand, and holding it between his two 
clasped hands, he poured forth a prayer which seemed 
to come from the very depths of his heart. I have 
scarcely ever heard so impressive a prayer. I will not 
attempt to give his words from memory, but I can 
never forget the impression that it made on me, nor 
the tone and manner of him who offered it ; both were 
expressive of the deepest sense of his own entire un- 
worthiness and vileness before G-od : and at the same 
time, of the most perfect confidence in His love and 
His power who had snatched him as a brand from the 
burning. It was the very outpouring of the spirit of 
one, into the lowest depths of whose heart the infinite 
iove of Christ had penetrated ; and who had been, as 
he solemnly declared in that prayer, saved from the 
very depths of hell. He continued long in that rapt 
and audible communion with Grod ; and all the time 
his hands were folded over mine, though he seemed 
unconscious of the presence of any one but that holy 
and heart-searching Being, to whom he was laying 
bare the very depths of his soul. His faith was clear, 
calm, and unshaken, and he appeared to love that 
most gracious God whose love to him he delighted to 



204 TRANSFORmNG GRACE. 

dwell upon, with his whole heart and soul ; but I 
scarcely ever sav/ a smile upon his face. He was 
happy in the highest sense ; but it seemed to me that 
even his happiness was to his mind, too deep, too solid; 
too important a thing to be otherwise than solemnly 
regarded, for he never lost sight of what he was before 
God. I do not indeed remember to have met with 
any one so severe in his judgment of himself, or so 
fearful lest he should disgrace the profession which he 
made by even the most trifling inconsistency. One 
morning — it was but a day or two before his death — 
I found him in a state of great wretchedness. Almost 
his first words to me were, *• I fear that I have no true 
religion about me after all. This very morning has 
witnessed an outbreak of my old bad disposition, and 
I begin to fear that there has been no real change in 
me. A message was brought to my bedside, which it 
would perhaps have been better that I should not have 
heard ; it was rude and insulting ; but it was only in 
accordance with my former spirit. I ought to have 
borne it with meekness, and returned good for evil. 
But it roused my anger, and caused me to speak 
in a most unbecoming manner : and this has led me 
to ask myself whether I can possibly be a changed 
man, and whether all my religion is not a mere delu- 
sion ! I am a dying man, on the very brink of eternity, 
and have I not given proof by m^y intemperate conduct 
tthat I am not fit to enter into the presence of God ?'' 
It was not difficult with one so watchful and so 
•.searching in his dealings with himself, to assure him 
■that while I did fully agree vdih him in condemning 
his fault, I saw at the same time, in the trouble that 



TRANSFORMING GRACE. 205 

it occasioned him, an evidence of his utter abhorrence 
of all evil, and of his uncompromising spirit of resis- 
tance to the natural workings of its power within him. 
The heavy cloud passed away, and the solemn and 
peaceful calm that succeeded was never again dis- 
turbed. 

The next day, I was hastily summoned to him at 
an early hour. He was evidently near his end. After 
reading and praying with him as usual, he requested 
his wife to bring a basin of water, and to wash his 
hands. He gave no explanation of what seemed to 
me at the time, somewhat extraordinary ; and I asked 
for none. But after this was done, he fixed his eyes 
on me, and said : '' My dear friend, will you remain 
with me till all is over ?" I was sitting by his bed- 
side, and he held out his hand, and took mine, clasp- 
ing it with a gentle pressure, but saying nothing, after 
I had promised not to leave him. From time to time 
I whispered some precious assurance of his Saviour's 
presence, and of his Saviour's love ; and there I sat, 
in the hushed and solemn stillness of that quiet room ; 
there I sat hour after hour, scarcely speaking, fearing 
to disturb the profound peace which was spreading a 
more and more settled influence over the whole spirit 
of the dying man, in that, his last earthly communion 
with G-od. I saw his eyes raised with an expression 
of intense adoration, and his lips moving from time to 
time as if in inward prayer ; sometimes his eyes were 
fixed for a moment upon the countenance of his gentle 
and affectionate wife, and sometimes upon myself. 
But we did not speak ; we did not move : we knew 
not the time of his departure. His hand was still 



206 TRANSFORMING GRACE. 

clasped in mine, and for some time, I hesitated to 
withdraw my hand, till it had ceased to impart any- 
thing like warmth to the pale long fingers within its 
grasp : and till the contrast of color in the two hands 
declared too plainly to be mistaken, that the one was 
that of the living, the other that of the dead. His end 
in every sense was peace. 

Ah, was not this — the once fierce and untamed 
lion gazing upon the Lamb of G-od — that bleeding sa- 
crifice — that meek and lovely example — till he himself 
was changed into the same image, and had become a 
lamb of His fold, and a marvel of His transforming 
grace I 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE RACE-COURSE AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 

Among the facts which, during a long course in the 
service of my gracious and adorable Master, have come 
under my own observation, and which, I trust, with 
His blessing, may be made useful to m.y readers, are 
niany connected with races, and gambling, and the 
various other evils associated with the race-course. I 
was for ten years placed in a position where those evils 
— and their name is Legion, for they are niany — were 
necessarily brought before me in all their enormity. 
One friend whom I respect and love, perhaps above all 
other friends on earth, has, on several occasions, re- 
quested me to put them together, and to publish them. 
He well knows the high opinion in which I hold his 
judgment, and that any request of his comes almost 
as a command upon me. 

I fully propose to publish a volume of facts on this 
subject, at no distant period. I have much to say on 
the crying evils of the whole system, and facts are 
the best arguments. A few of them, in the mean- 
while, I shall now bring before my readers. 

I could cite the testimonies of othei'S to prove the 
evil of races. I could refer to brother-clergymen at 
Epsom and Doncaster, who have spoken to me in de- 
cided terms of the eflects produced by them, in both 
those well-known places ; but I confine myself to the 



208 THE RACE-COURSE 



city of Chester, because I can speak from my own 
experience, and record facts for the truth of which I can 
myself vouch. The crime, the sorrow, the ruin, the 
deaths which I have witnessed ; the lamentations which 
I have heard, are not to be forgotten ; and I would add, 
with all christian gentleness, but with all christian 
faithfulness, they must not be kept back. I can well con- 
ceive that many who defend and promote the evils of 
which I speak, have been ignorant of these things : but 
I have not been ignorant, and at the risk of displeasing 
some kind and friendly persons, who I fear do not desire 
to have their eyes opened, I must record my faithful tes- 
timony. Perhaps there is no place in England in w^hich 
the evils of the race-course are so mixed up with the 
population of the place as the city of Chester ; the race- 
course may be said to form part of the place. There 
is no need, as in other towns, to go even a short dis- 
tance to be a spectator of the proceedings ; a person 
standing on the western walls of the town has the 
whole race-course spread out at his very feet. During 
the last few years, owing to the exertions of a worthy 
magistrate of the place, at the time that he was 
mayor, the first day of the race was altered from the 
Monday to the Tuesday, to avoid the awful profanation 
of the Lord's day with which that week commenced. 
Before that change took place, the tumult in the streets, 
even during divine service, was so great, that it was 
a continual interruption to the congregations assem- 
bled in the churches. I have been jostled almost off 
the steps which led to my own church-door, as I de- 
scended them, by a crowd of ill-mannered fellows, who 
came up arm in arm, one of the party puffing the 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 209 

smoke of his cigar in my face : and the sabbath eve- 
ning, in that ancient christian city, presented, on every 
side, scenes that would have been disgraceful even to 
a heathen land. Carriages of all sorts came rolling 
into the town, during the whole of the Lord's day ; 
and there were sights and sounds on every side, as 
the night drew in, ill suited to the Christian Sabbath ; 
drunkards reeling and shouting about the streets, or 
vomiting in the corners of them, and the inns and 
public houses of all sorts, filled to overflowing with 
noisy and ungodly revellers. There was, a few years 
ago, one room in my own parish, which has been so 
crowded by the mixed multitude of gamblers assem- 
bled there, that the men sat on one another's knees ; 
and there hundreds and thousands of pounds were bet- 
ted and taken ; and not only there, but in every quar- 
ter of the old city, the gambler and the black-leg of 
high and low life might be seen, with careworn brow 
and eager look, intent upon their close calculations — 
the bold and reckless gambler ready to stake his all 
upon the favorite horse — the selfish and the cautious, 
exercising all his skill in '' hedging," to secure and to 
enrich himself. I look back with heartfelt satisfaction 
to the bold and decided protest which I was enabled, 
during the space of those ten years, to make against 
the whole system ; and now, at a distance from that 
city, which I love better than almost any other place, 
and where some of the happiest years of my life have 
been spent, I take up my pen to record the same un- 
compromising protest against what appears to me the 
crying evil in the sight of G-od, and the great hin- 
drance to the growth of godliness in that place. 



210 THE RACE-COURSE. 



Year after year it seemed as if some advancement 
was made in winning souls to Grod, and humanly 
speaking, this was the case : many an individual be- 
gan to manifest a desire to walk in the ways of godli- 
ness, and to take delight in the things of Grod ; but 
perhaps, at the very time that the snare of the fowler 
seemed broken, and the soul about to escape, the snare 
was again set, the temptation again presented, and 
the captive again secured. I believe that this is not 
only my testimony, but that of several other earnest 
and anxious ministers of Christ in Chester. How 
often have I seen some individual, in whom I had be- 
gun to take a deep interest, and by whose apparent 
consistency in attending the means of grace, I had 
been led to hope that he was indeed strengthened, 
stablished and settled, fall away, and prove that he 
was utterly unable to resist the influence of the periodi- 
cal mania of the Chester race-week. "With his eyes 
fully opened to the folly and the sin of the way which 
he was about to take, he has started aside from his 
new profession, like a broken bow, and realized the 
strong expression of the Apostle Peter ; by returning 
^^ like the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in 
the mire." Many an ingenuous youth well known to 
me, has deplored with shame-stricken countenance, 
and fast-falling tears, the gross immoralities of that 
season. I have before me the instance of two young 
men especially, in whom the consistent godliness of 
several years was totally overthrown. I rejoice to 
think, they have been both, by the grace of G-od, 
brought back to the paths which they had forsaken, 
wiser and humbler from their fall, and have since 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 211 



been enabled to stand in a strength which they had 
not earnestly sought before. But alas, how many 
there are, who have not returned, and who have ended 
by hardening their own conscience, after having begun 
by resisting its checks. 

There was a fine, manly fellow of eight and twen- 
ty, apparently a steady sober-minded man, a constant 
attendant for some time with his godly sister at my 
church. He was a kind son, an affectionate brother, 
a good workman, and high in the confidence of his 
employers. He had joined my Bible class of young 
men, and had won my esteem by the simple frankness 
of his disposition, and the plain manliness of his whole 
bearing. But gradually he withdrew himself from 
the church and from the Bible class, and all my re- 
monstrances, seconded by those of his widowed mother 
and sister, were civilly and quietly received, but 
steadily and inflexibly resisted. And yet there was 
no apparent immoralit}^ to be discovered ; nothing in 
his life or conduct which either I or his relations could 
censure, except his utter disregard of the Lord's day, 
and of all other means of grace. He was still the 
same affectionate son and brother ; he brought faith- 
fully to his mother at the end of the week, the sum of 
money — not a small one — which he had agreed to 
give her for his board and lodging. But his anxious 
mother sighed in secret, and felt that there was some- 
thing wrong, though she hardly liked to own it to 
herself, while his pious and exemplary sister openly 
deplored to me the sad change in her beloved Charley. 
He was seized with an illness, which filled them with 
alarm. He had worked to the last moment ; and one 



212 THE RACE-COURSE. 



morning about eleven o'clock, he came in from his 
work quite exhausted, and throwing himself on a 
chair, said, with a countenance of deep sadness ; '' I 
must give it up ; I can work no more." He took to 
his bed. His illness was of a lingering character, and 
at times he seemed to rally ; but although his appa- 
rent recovery filled their hearts with new hope, still 
he was but the shadow of his former self ; and at last 
he returned to his bed, never to leave it again. They 
wished him to see me ; and I went to him immediately. 
The poor fellow was pleased to see me ; and many an 
hour did I spend at his bed-side. It was impossible 
not to be pleased with him ; but though as his friend, 
I loved him ; as the minister of Christ I could never 
feel satisfied with his state. He owned to me that he 
had given up every hope of recovering his health ; he 
said that he knew that he should die ; but there was 
something — I could not discover it — which made me 
feel that there was no reality about his repentance, 
nothing genuine in his faith. It was no immorality 
in the common sense of the word, to which he had 
yielded ; I questioned him plainly but delicately on all 
such points. There was however a holding back of 
something, a coldness, a want of heart in all that he 
said, when replying to my earnest appeals on the one 
point of vital importance. 

One evening on entering his chamber, I found him 
in close and earnest conversation with another man, a 
grave, middle-aged man, who seemed to be as steady 
and respectable as himself; his dress showed that he 
was well to do in the world, and his manner was more 
than commonly civil and respectful. He continued to 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 213 

converse with the sick man for a few minutes in a 
calm quiet voice : but I saw a look exchanged be- 
tween them, and he rose up and took his leave. I re- 
mained v/ith my poor friend about my usual time ; 
but the visit was as before, unsatisfactory, and yet I 
could hardly tell why. After I had left him, I was 
again suddenly summoned to the house : the mother 
met me with looks of alarm : poor Charley, she said 
had suddenly been taken much worse ; she feared he 
was actually dying at that very time. I hastened up 
to the chamber, and his sister quitted it as I entered. 
I think her brother had requested to be left alone with 
me. He was indeed to all appearance a dying man : 
never have I witnessed so profuse a death-sweat in 
any dying person : his hands, his face, his hair, his 
own linen, and that of the bed, were reeking with the 
cold and heavy moisture, its chilness when I touched 
his hand alarmed me. I placed my finger on his pulse, 
it was scarcely perceptible ; I spoke to him, his manly 
voice had died almost to a whisper. I said no more, 
I saw what was needed ; and instantly quitted the 
room. ''I must have strong hot brandy and water 
immediately for him," I said to his mother. '' But he 
is forbidden," she replied, " to take wine or spirits of 
any kind. The doctor has ordered nothing but gruel." 
*'He must have brandy, or he will sink at once," I 
answered, '' and I will take the risk upon myself." 
The cordial was given ; and he gradually revived. I 
continued sitting by his bed-side. I soon felt his pulse 
returning to its strength, and not long after, he was 
enabled to speak to me. '' I must tell you. Sir," he 
said, *^ what is the cause of all this. It is not bodily 



214 THE RACE-COURSE 



illness : it is not death ; it is the state of my mind. 
I must tell you every thing. If I keep my secret 
any longer, it will kill me. I have made up my mind 
to speak to you in confidence, as my friend. But you 
will promise me not to tell my mother and sister : it 
would break their hearts to know what my course has 
been, and how shamefully I have deceived them. Ah, 
Sir, those races ! they have been my ruin ! I had 
given up for a time — when I came to your church, 
and to your young men's class — my gambling and my 
betting ; but I did not know my own weakness ; and 
by degrees, I fell back again : and the worst of it all 
is, Sir, the secrecy with which I have been going on 
in my bad ways. I have had my betting-books at 
many of the public-houses, not only in Chester, but in 
Liverpool. The man you saw in my room to-night, is 
just such another as myself, a respectable, industrious 
workman, but as entirely given up, as I was, to that 
wicked gambling. He came to speak to me on the 
subject to-night : but I had told him, just before you 
entered the room, never to come to me again, for that 
I had done with the thing for ever. And now, Sir, let 
me tell you what have been the ways of our set. We 
were all of us sober men, men of good character, in- 
dustrious, and well-respected, but given up secretly to 
this betting and gambling. And it was on the Lord's 
day that we made our plans and settled our books. 
We used to go quietly one by one from our own houses, 
taking a round by some of the back-streets of the 
town, to our place of meeting, at the river-side ; and 
there take a boat, and go up the Dee for a few miles ; 
and then when we were out of sight and hearing, we 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 215 

settled our business. You would scarcely believe, if 
I were to tell you, the large sums that we have lost 
and won from our calculations, and our bets on the 
various races throughout the country. We made it a 
matter of downright business, and carried on the work 
with the same coolness and steadiness that we gave 
to our regular calling. Oftentimes I have trembled 
to think of the risks I have run, and the difficulties in 
which I have been entangled, and the sums that were 
at stake, and the ruin that stared me in the face. 
The wonder has been, how I have been able to bring 
my mother my v/eekly pay, and to deceive her and 
poor Mary as I have all along done ; but it is the se- 
cret deceit of the whole that has cut me to the heart, 
and as I lay and thought upon it to-night, it took me 
in such a way, that I think I have gone through all 
the pains and all the dreadful weakness and faintness 
of a dying hour. Ill as I am, vSir, it was not my ill- 
ness that reduced me to the state you sav/ ; it was 
this, and only this — ^the horror that came over me, and 
the shame, when I thought how I had taken you all 
in ; and, Sir, I have never been in earnest-— you must 
have seen it — I have never been in earnest — ^though I 
am all but a dying man — notwithstanding all the 
pains you took with me, and all the kindness you 
showed me, till now. I have never cared, really cared 
for my soul, never loved my blessed Saviour. How 
could I, Sir, keeping back my sin, and hiding my se- 
cret in my heart as I have done ? But I am glad that 
I have told you ; and that I have been open and plain- 
spoken at last. Ah ! Sir, perhaps you never knew till 
to-night, what a curse these races have been to many 



216 THE RACE-COURSE 

a respectable man like myself, in a secret way. Only 
let me beg that what I have told you, you will not let 
my poor mother and sister know ; for I cannot bear to 
think of the grief which they would feel." 

I said but little to him that night. There was 
now no cause to impress upon him the greatness of 
the sin, of which he was so deeply conscious. But in 
the little that I did say, I gravely assured him how 
fully I concurred with the view that he took of his sin, 
how thoroughly I agreed with him in the abhorrence 
he felt at the course of continued deceit which he had 
pursued ; and kneeling down beside him, we poured 
forth together our solemn and humble prayer to Him, 
who alone had the power and the will to forgive him, 
in that prevailing name, by which alone the guilty 
sinner can hope to find pardon and acceptance with 
an offended and heart-searching Grod. 

When I went to him on the following day, his 
sister begged to speak to me before I went up to his 
chamber, Charles had told her and his mother every 
thing. On quietly thinking the matter over, he had 
judged it right to do so, and though they had not said 
a word Iq excuse of his sin, he had met with nothing 
but tender affection from those two loving hearts. 

I found him much better — the burden which from 
the beginning of his illness had oppressed his spirit, 
had been removed, and he had been enabled, not only 
to confide it to his earthly friends ; he had laid the 
whole weight on that gracious Saviour who has borne 
our own sins in His own body upon the tree ; and who 
is as willing as He is able to receive the returning and 
repentant sinner. He was enabled to rejoice in that 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 217 

great assurance, that, ^' if we confess our sins, Grod is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins." He was 
strengthened in spirit, for he was now rejoicing in 
hope ; and his bodily health, though he was unable to 
quit his chamber, or his bed, had apparently improved. 
The short interval thus graciously granted to him 
proved a season of great blessedness. There could be 
no doubt that the Lord had put away his sin, and had 
accepted him ; and when his strength once more failed 
him ; and his redeemed spirit departed ; it seemed to 
all around him, as if the Lord had said unto him ; 
^' Gro in peace." 

I am well aware that the worldly reader may say, 
that after all, his sin was not a flagrant one. But 
those who have been brouo'ht to know that the dealinsfs 
of Grod are with the heart, will take the same view as 

poor Charles did, of the course of conduct which 

he had pursued: and will see in the peculiar tender- 
ness of his conscience, and the anguish of mind which 
he suffered, a proof that he had entered into a true 
conception of the character of Grod, and the evil of sin. 
All however must see from his case how fatal a snare 
those races had proved to him. 

'' Oh, Sir," said a mother to me, ^^ I wish I could 
never hear the name of races. They have brought 
nnisery enough into this family." I was attending the 
death-bed of her young and pious daughter at the 
time. " That dear child," she said, alluding to her 
daughter, " has never recovered the shock of her 
brother's conduct. He was led astray by idle and un- 
principled men ; and involved himself in their gam- 
bling transactions. It happened that his father was 
10 



218 THE RACE-COURSE 

expecting a large sum of money by the post. It was 
not our own ; it was to be paid away. We knew the 
day when it was to arrive : and when that day arrived, 
I cannot tell you what came over me — ^but a suspicion 
which I could not bear to own to myself, and yet 
which I was unable to resist, filled me with alarm. I 
sent off my eldest daughter without a moment's delay, 
to the post-office, desiring her to apply for the letter, 
and bring it immediately to us. But, Sir, my horrible 
suspicion was but too well-grounded ; her brother had 
been there before her ; and the letter and the money 
were gone ! I say, gone ; it had been gambled away 
before he had obtained it ; and to save him from a 
public trial, and the disgrace of open exposure, we 
were obliged to hasten his departure from the country, 
AVe sent his youngest sister to remain with him till 
the ship sailed ; we knew her influence over him ; for 
if he loved one person on earth, it was her; and alas, 
she knew and felt as well as we did that if she had 
lost sight of him for a moment, he would have let the 
vessel go without him. He is gone ; he is banished 
to a distant country ; that favorite sister is now dying ; 
and we his aged parents can never hope to see him 
again on earth. Oh, Sir, have I not cause to hate the 
very name of races ?'' 

It has often struck me that the whole race-system 
is one of those evils which bides its enormities under 
a kind of mask ; and that it would be well to pluck 
off the mask, and to exhibit its real features. It is 
spoken of and often defended, on the gronnd of its being 
a manly sport ; and it is presumed that the worst that 
can be said of it, must be on the score of its being an 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 219 

unprofitable amusement. It must be allowed that 
many honorable but worldly men, of high rank and 
great riches, have made themselves foolishly notorious 
by their enthusiastic attachment to the turf: men 
who might have been well employed in adorning their 
high earthly calling, or using their wealth in some 
noble pursuit, by which they might have benefited 
their fellow men, and proved that they were really 
desirous of fulfilling the duties of their responsible sta- 
tion in society. Surely the man of mind and educa- 
tion ought not to be found wasting the energies of the 
one, and abusing the advantages of the other, by de- 
voting himself to the breeding or the running of a 
race-horse, and making the pursuit a kind of passion, 
initiating himself in all those details of the stable and 
the course which may be well suited to the calling of 
a groom, but somewhat out of character in the man 
who bears a name associated with the lofty intellect, 
or the heroic deeds of those distinguished in the histo- 
ry of his country. One can scarcely repress a smile 
at hearing of a nobleman keeping the saddles of his 
jockeys under his own lock and key. But who can 
repress a sigh on reading the following quotation from 
a well-known advocate of the turf, who speaks of 
gentlemen, " true as the sun in all private transac- 
tions, allowing themselves to deviate from the right 
path on a race-course, in revenge for what they 
deemed to have been injustice. We could name," 
he adds, '' several honorable and highly-minded gen- 
tlemen who have openly avowed this. — ' Our money 
has been taken from us :' they have declared, ' with- 
out our having a chance to keep it, and we will 



220 THE RACE-COURSE 



recover it in any way we can.' " I remember, 
some twenty years ago, a lady lamenting to me, that 
she had herself seen a number of young and lovely 
women of high rank, whose names she mentioned, 
going with the gentlemen of their party into a public 

betting-booth at the 'M races. 

There were times, but those times are gone by, 
when, as we are told, the race-course was the gather- 
ing-ground and the meeting-place of the nobility and 
of the high-bred persons in the country ; and the worst 
that could be said of it, was, that there the pursuit 
of worldly pleasure, and the display of worldly pomp 
and luxury, and the waste of precious hours, were the 
chief evils. If gambling in the form of betting was 
carried on, it was at least only an unpremeditated act, 
springing from the excitement of the moment. Pride 
and vanity and folly were doubtless often seen in all 
their full-blown display, on such occasions : but a low 
and sordid soirit of covetousness, and a srreediness for 
gain, and a sacrifice of honorable principle would not 
have been tolerated. Perhaps I am drawing too 
flattering a picture. But this is at least a charitable 
view to take of the subject. One fact, however, is 
certain ; that those times have passed away ; the 
frequenters of the race-course belong to a very different 
class at the present day. The open countenance, and 
the sunny smile, and the high and honorable bearing 
of the class which then were the chief spectators of the 
sport, are now the rare exceptions, in the assembled 
throng. The chief promoters of the amusement — for 
it still bears the name, and wears the mask of amuse- 
ment — come together as thoughtful speculating men 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 221 

of business, intent on profit and loss, and too many of 
them not over-scrupulous as to the means they take 
of filling their pockets from the losses and ruin of their 
associates. Many men are there who have no charac- 
ter to lose, but who are too idle to work industriously 
and honestly for their daily bread, and who must have 
money for their selfish gratifications or their profligate 
pleasures. Let things be called by their right names. 
If men will gamble and cheat, let them call themselves 
gamblers, we cannot expect them to own to the other 
name ; let them defend their pursuits if they can, but 
not under the name of manly and harmless sports. 
Would that we could see the abominations of the turf 
entirely given over to the degraded and demoralized 
class, who are now their chief promoters. Would that 
we could see intellectual as well as physical manliness 
in the pursuits of our English gentlemen ; and that 
noblest characteristic of an immortal being, Christian 
manliness, modestly, but openly, manifested. There 
seems indeed to be the commencement of a better 
order of things. One can but contrast the scenes of 
former years at a Newmarket or Epsom meeting, with 
such meetings as that which I attended last spring, 
when the young Prince Consort was present, surround- 
ed by some of the highest noblemen and gentlemen 
of the country, the good Lord Ashley pre-eminent 
among them: when the subject that called them 
together, was the amelioration of the moral and 
physical condition of the laboring classes : when the 
noblest sentiments were heard and responded to, and 
the higher classes proved themselves indeed worthy of 
the chivalry of their order. 



222 



THE RACE-COURSE 



These are not times when the people of the nation 
most favored by G-od, and especially distinguished by 
His mercies, should be making themselves conspicuous 
by the follies and the vices of vv^hich I have spoken. 
Amid the shaking of nations, and the heaving of the 
whole mass of society ; after unexampled commercial 
distress ; under a second visitation of that scourge of 
God, the cholera ; amid all the portentous signs of the 
times, surely if a stern simplicity is not seen, — surely 
if recreation must be had, where humiliation before 
God would be most becoming — that recreation should 
at least be honorable and harmless in its character. 

It is not of course my intention to enter upon any 
lengthened disquisition on the subject of the turf; but 
to bring forward some of those facts that have come 
under my own observation, in my ministerial office. 
It falls to the lot of the parish clergyman, in a city 
like Chester, not only to witness as others do, the 
rolling in of the flood of dissipation and riot at high- 
tide ; but to mark the refuse of slime and filth which 
is left behind, when the tide has receded ; for instance, 
to see the once ingenuous apprentice-lad in the prison- 
cell for having defrauded his master, that he might 
have money for his gambling bets, and for his profli- 
gate pleasures during the race-week ; to find the once 
modest servant-girl, the haggard inmate of the peni- 
tentiary, and to hear her bewailing with tears, the 
fatal temptations to which she was exposed from the 
arts of the unprincipled seducer ; and dating her ruin 
from the Chester race-week. I speak advisedly when 
I affirm this, and speak with authority, when I assert 
this to be a common case. 



•^ 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 223 

I was myself assured by a respectable Chester 
tradesman, and not by him alone, that scarcely a year 
passed by, without some cases occurring of boys and 
young men purloining their master's goods or money 
in order to enter into the dissipations of the Chester 
race-week. But I needed not such testimonies, for 
too many such cases have oome under my own obser- 
vation. ^^ I have heard many people say," said the 
above-mentioned tradesman — I copy his own written 
words, before me at this moment—^' that they can go 
to the races without joining in the evils committed 
there. I shall just state, as far as regards myself, 
that I have gone to the races years ago," — when he 
was a mere boy— ^' with my mind made up not to 
pin in any of the gambling which is to be met with 
there. But what was the result ? Why, that the 
temptation was too strong to be resisted, and that I 
went home pennyless.'^ 

Frightful warnings have been given occasionally 
at such seasons, during m^y ov/n residence in Chester. 
"Warnings which struck the mind^ of many with hor- 
ror, but which were soon forgotten, as fresh excitement 
called off the attention of the light-minded and heed- 
less. Let me glance at one, the details of which I 
shall not enter into. A vv^oman, the keeper of a house 
of infamy, was fitting up and adorning her rooms for 
that week of abounding profligacy ; when she was sud- 
denly struck with death : she was carried to her bed 
and a message was sent to the clergyman of the parish, 
to beg that he would come, and give her the Sacra- 
ment of the Lord's Supper I She died, and her fune- 
ral took place- I myself saw the mourners stand around 



224 THE RACE-COURSE 



the open grave. This occurred on the last day of the 
week previous to the races. But her husband com- 
pleted the preparations which she had begun, and the 
house was opened for its accustomed iniquities during 
that notorious week ! 

There was a man in the last stage of a consump- 
tion. He sent for a kind and pious neighbor well 
known to me, and from her own lips I heard the ac- 
count. She hoped that her presence was required as 
a Christian friend ; but she was deeply shocked to find 
that after listening to her for a short time, on the one 
subject which pressed heavily on her own heart, and 
which was alone of importance to him ; he suddenly 
declared that if he died on the way, he would be taken 
to the race-course. No entreaties that she and others 
could use, would avail to make him change his pur- 
pose. He was carried thither, and brought back more 
dead than alive. She was in the house when they 
brought him back ; he insisted on being placed in a 
chair, and on a pen being given him, to set down some 
gambling calculation. He was in the act of doing so, 
when the pen dropped from his fingers, and he fell 
back dead ! 

Another touching instance I must record. A man 
came to Chester races, the owner of a puppet-show of 
Punch ; and failed I suppose in obtaining his usual 
harvest. A young woman of interesting appearance 
accompanied him, supposed to be his wife. When the 
races were over, he went away and left her in their 
wretched lodging, without food, and utterly penny- 
less. She loved the heartless fellow, and gently said 
to those who blamed him, that he had gone at her de- 



m 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 225 

sire, that he might earn some money for them both, 
on some other race-ground. The kind-hearted people 
of the house pitied her extreme distress ; they gave 
hc;r food, and sent for me to visit her, but not till it 
was too late ; for though I went immediately, I found 
she was already dead ; the parting with the man, they 
assured me, had actually broken the heart of this poor 
devoted creature ! The occupation of this man, the 
voice of Punch, and the antics of the puppet show — 
oh, with what a frightful mockery did they contrast 
with the deep and real tragedy of the broken heart, 
and the silent corpse of that youthful and deserted 
woman. 

Fact after fact rises to my remembrance. I have 
not space for many in these pages — others, and those 
of a character the most deeply disgusting, are of such 
a description, that for the sake of common decency I 
could not mention them. One or two more however I 
must add. 

The wife of a sick man sent me a message by one 
of her friends, to beg that I would come and visit him. 
I of course obeyed the summons. I found her in the 
sitting-room of her house, and she showed much plea- 
sure on seeing me, and spoke with great anxiety about 
her husband's state. " He was asleep when I left him, 
Sir," she said; ^'but perhaps you will come up at 
once ?" I asked if it would not be better for her to 
go up first to him, to see if he were awake, and to 
mention that I was waiting. " No, Sir," she replied 
mildly, " if you will oblige me, you will let mo take 
you to his room, without first telling him that you are 
here. He can never recover ; and I hope you will speak 



226 THE RACE-COURSE 



to him and pray \Yith him ; but I fear that if I were 
to ask you to wait till I had spoken to him, he would 
make some excuse, and decline seeing you. And 
Sir, if you please, you must see him." I followed her 
immediately to the room. The poor young man was 
sitting near the fire-place, and was already awake. 
He was fearfully emaciated, and looked very ill. He 
received me with some restraint, but was gentle and 
respectful in his manner. I afterwards learnt from 
himself that he knew nothing of my coming, but that 
his affectionate wife, in her anxiety for his spiritual 
welfare, had determined if possible to bring me to visit 
him, though she knew, that had his consent been 
asked, he would not have given it. Observing his 
constraint of manner, I felt that I should have to win 
my way to his confidence, I said therefore but little to 
him on that first visit. I wished him to feel that I was 
kind, and I did not w^ish to alarm him by speaking of 
his danger, which vras too apparent ; but kneeling 
down beside him, I offered up a prayer, in which I 
dwelt chiefly on the tender mercy of God, in revealing 
Himself as a reconciled Father in Christ to guilty and 
wretched sinners ; and on the gracious invitations of 
our blessed and forgiving Redeemer. He seemed soft- 
ened and soothed, when T rose up, and expressed his 
thankfulness in a pleasing manner, for my kindness 
in feeling for him and coming to visit him. I asked 
him, — as I often do on such occasions, — whether he 
would wish me to come again. He smiled and said 
that he should think it very kind in me, if I would 
come, and that he hoped I would. I went again, and 
soon became almost a daily visitor in his sick chamber. 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 227 

He now began to speak to me of his own sinful and 
ungodly course ; of time wasted, money squandered, 
health and constitution ruined ; and the thought that 
he was a dying man, and that his opportunities of re- 
trieving the past, were gone by for ever, seemed to 
make him very wretched. It was not till after I had 
been acquainted with him for some weeks, that I knew 
anything of the history of his past life. But he had 
begun to feel a sincere affection for me, and to open 
his whole heart to me with an unreserved confidence. 

I was sitting by his side, I well remember, as on 
my first interview, by the fire-place, in his light and airy 
chamber, when he began by saying ; ^' Dear Sir, not 
long ago, I hated your very name, I was told that 
you were harsh and severe, and took a pleasure in set- 
ting yourself against the races and all the pleasant 
amusements of the place. In short. Sir, the charac- 
ter they gave you, led me to feel a strong dislike to 
you. I was taken by surprise when you first came 
to see me, and when you spoke so kindly, and with 
such tenderness to me ; and when I saw by your loolvs 
that you felt for my sufferings ; and heard you pray 
"SO earnestly that God would forgive me and bless me, 
I could not help feeling grateful to you for visiting me, 
and caring for me; and I soon discovered how pre- 
judiced and how mistaken I had been about you : and 
now I know you to be my friend, and I have found 
out what the friendship of my former companions was 
worth. They have helped to bring me to the state in 
which you see me, and now they all forsalce me. You 
are right. Sir, in objecting to the races. And indeed, 
you could notspo-9^ too strongly against them. Those 



228 THE RACE-COURSE 



friends who forget me and forsake me now, first 
tempted me to neglect my business, and injure my 
health, by the life I led with them, drinking and 
gambling, and indeed, in a manner given up to the 
pleasures and sins connected with the race-course*'^ 
Again he dvv^elt upon their neglect of him in his sick- 
chamber, when he could no longer be a pleasant com- 
panion, and squander his money away with them. '' I 
have sent them messages,'' he said, *' and I have 
written to one or two of them : but I get no answer, 
and not one of them will come near me. And yet I 
don't think that they mean it unkindly : but I know 
that they cannot bear to think of death, and would 
shun the chamber of a dying man." I can bear my 
testimony, for I was with him to the last, that not 
one of his former associates ever came to see him : but 
he passed away from this world as much, to all ap- 
pearance, forgotten by them all, as if they had never 
known him. 

As he became acquainted with the gracious invita- 
tions of the gospel, which G-od gave him faith to em- 
brace with his whole heart, his hatred of his former 
life increased, and he began to be happy in the hope 
which he felt, that God had forgiven his sins, and that 
he mio^ht look forward to the blessedness of everlastino: 
life in the kingdom of heaven. And now he learnt to 
feel a deep and real concern for those friends who 
3iad so unkindly forsaken him. ''Will you pro- 
anise me," he said to me, but a short time before 
3iis death, '' will you promise me. Sir, to preach a 
rsermon expressly to them, to tell them from your pul- 
pit, when I am gone, how unhappy I was made by the 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 229 

life I led with them ; and to bid them take warning 
by my early death ? Will you ask them to pray to 
God to turn their hearts to Him, as He has turned 
mine ?" ^'I would willingly do so," I replied, ^'but 
if I were to preach the sermon as you request me, they 
would never hear it. At present they never enter my 
church ; and therefore they would not know, unless I 
sent to tell them, that I intended to preach such a ser- 
mon. And if I were to invite them to come, you must 
be well aware from what you have told me of their 
views and habits, that would be the very means to 
drive them away." '' But I should wish them to be 
warned," he said ; " and if they will not come to me, 
and hear from my own lips my testimony as a dying 
man, in what way can I reach them ?" I advised 
his writing to each of them a private letter, and pro- 
mised to write the letters at his bed-side, under his 
dictation : and this was to have been done ; but it 
pleased G-od to order it otherwise. His faintness was 
so extreme, when I next saw him, that he was scarcely 
able to speak : and in that state he continued, till he 
fell asleep in Jesus. 

Perhaps these pages may meet the eyes of some 
of those former companions of his. I hope they may ; 
and if such should be the case, they will know — with- 
out the name being given — of whom I have been 
speaking. And with all friendliness and gentleness 
of spirit, I would say to them, that I wish they could 
have seen their once gay and light-hearted companion, 
as I saw him. I wish they could have heard him 
speak of the utter emptiness and unprofitableness of 
all that he had once deemed pleasure. I wish they 



230 THE RACE-COURSE 



could have witnessed the thorough disgust with which 
he turned away from the thought of the betting-book, 
and the racing-stable, and the course, and tne drink- 
ing, and all the other evil and ungodly ways closely 
associated with their favorite pursuit. I wish they 
could have seen his touching grief of heart, and heard 
his lamentations over his mis-spent life, and the ruin 
he had brought upon his delicate and sickly wife — so 
tenderly attached to him, and so uncomplaining — and 
over his three little girls. And I wish they could also 
have seen with what deep thankfulness he had re- 
ceived the gospel of the grace of Grod, and the gra- 
cious invitation of the Saviour whom, in health and 
strength, he had neglected and despised, in calling the 
weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him and find 
rest unto their souls. He had obeyed the call, and 
had departed in peace. 

''After his death his affairs were found completely 
involved, and his little property entirely gone. His 
poor wife, who had borne up with extraordinary 
strength and even cheerfulness, to the moment of his 
departure, never held up her head again, took to her 
bed soon after, and died not only worn out in health, 
but broken-hearted. His three little delicate girls 
were quite orphaned. 

After seeing what I saw, and hearing what I heard, 
during the illness of that misguided young man, who 
could hesitate to regard him as a victim, a willing one 
I own, but decidedly a victim, to the infatuation of 
the race-course ? I call the feeling prevalent among 
all classes in Chester, an infatuation, for it is nothing 
less. The race-week is to very many the one event 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS 231 

of the year to which they look forward, the season 
from which they seem to date. You do not hear them 
saying, It will be a year last Christmas day, or last 
Easter, but " last race-week ;'' and as I said before, 
this is the great hindrance, humanly speaking, to the 
spread and the rooting of religion in Chester. 

I can bear witness to the state of the alleys in my 
own parish during that season, especially the orgies 
of drunkenness ; when some continued in one fit of 
intoxication during the w~hole week. I am a close ob- 
server, as my reader may discover ; and I do not hesi- 
tate to say, from what I have seen with my own eyes 
and heard with my own ears, but what I cannot, for 
very shame's sake, write down and print, that no de- 
scription of heathen debauchery which I have ever met 
with could be worse than the state of Chester in a 
race-week. 

I shall never forget the impression made on my 
mind by a song which I heard from the lips of two 
little jockey-boys, whom I passed on the evening of 
one Sunday preceding the race-week. I looked at the 
child -like expression of their faces, and their slight 
and delicate figures, and their neat and well-made 
dress, and I could only hope that they did not know 
the meaning of their own words, for they were, with- 
out exception, the most revoltingly indecent words I 
ever heard from human lips. I was on the way to my 
evening lecture, where I had to preach to a crowded 
congregation, and to preach on the evils of the week 
which had commenced with that Sabbath, and I could 
not refrain mentioning, from the pulpit, the impression 
made upon me by the song of those poor children. 



232 THE RACE-COURSE 



The minister of the gospel, who is faithful and 
bold enough to speak out on the subject, were he to 
be as gentle as an angel, would be sure to stir up a 
storm of anger in the hearts of many of the people. 
They would bear almost any thing but a word against 
the races. I have never met with kinder friends than 
in the city of Chester, and I love the place and the 
people from my heart ; but I have had to encounter as 
many of those storms as most of my brethren, particu- 
larly in my determined and successful efforts, to put 
down the illegal doings of the cock-pit. That inhuman 
sport, more suited to fiends than to the immortal 
creature whom the Lord Grod constituted and appoint- 
ed to be the guardian of all the lower animals of the 
creation, used to be carried on every morning of the 
race-week in the Chester cock-pit ; and thither the 
admirers of the vile, unmanly amusement, came in 
troops to witness the furious fights and the dying 
agonies of the noble birds, trained and fed with the 
most stimulating food to make them as fierce as 
possible when opposed to one another. The races 
commenced at two o'clock in the afternoon, but all the 
morning the cock-pit was open, and the yells and 
shouts of the unmanly throng who filled the spacious 
building, were so loud, that more than once I have 
started from my seat and thrown open one of the 
windows of my study, thinking that some brutal 
outrage was being committed by a furious mob, in the 
street beyond the garden-court of the house I then 
occupied. It was only the riotous yellings from the 
adjacent cock-pit. I felt this evil to be a disgrace to the 
common humanity of my fellow townsmen. I am 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENT.S 233 

happy to say that not many of them were the fre- 
quenters of the cock-pit. "^ 

I sent for the Act of Parliament^ the 5th and 6th of 
William the 4th, in which the fighting of cocks, and 
the baiting of bulls, dogs, &c., are declared to be con- 
trary to the law of the land, and I resolved, in the 
face of whatever opposition I might meet with, to put 
an end to the inhuman and illegal exhibition. I, of 
course, had as I foresaw, much anger and violent oppo- 
sition to encounter, but the cause was well worthy of 
much more, and the disgrace exists no longer. The 
cock-pit has been turned into a railway-warehouse. 
To give some idea of the violent resentment which I 
stirred up against me, T will mention but one instance. 
I could mention many. One morning, in the depth 



* The feeding and training of fighting cocks was a science much 
prized by the lovers of the degrading amusement. In a parish where 
I once resided, there was a fine oh] man of eighty years of age. He 
was highly respectable, and had been a tried and trustworthy upper 
servant in some families of note. He was celebrated, however, for liis 
extraordinary skill in the art of feeding fighting cocks : and his aged 
and pious wife, entertaining a deep abhorrence of the practice, obtained 
from him in her dying hour, when I was present, a solemn promise that 
no sum of money which might be offered to him, no entreaty or induce- 
ment whatsoever, should ever prevail with him again to train and feed 
fighting-cocks. For some time after her death, he resolutely withstood 
the applications that were made to him, which his character as tlie most 
famous trainer in that part of England, obtained for him even at that 
advanced age. But one day, the old man was missing ; and his chil- 
dren afterwards told me in much distress of mind, that the temptation 
to their father, backed by his own rooted incUnation, had overcome the 
promise made to their dying mother — that he liad actually run away 
unknown to tliem, and was then employed in training the cocks of a 
certain gentleman, whose name at least was one of the highest respec- 
tability in a neighboring county. 






234 THE RACE -COURSE 



of winter, when the ground was covered with snow, 
which was falling fast, I was on my way to meet a 
class of young men, who assembled at six o'clock all 
the year round, on the Wednesday morning of every 
week. The darkness was so thick that I had taken 
a lantern with me, though the gas-lights in the rows, 
or covered passages peculiar to Chester, afforded me 
some light when I entered them. While walking 
down Bridge Street Ptow, my notice was drawn to a 
dark figure lying on its face, in one of the galleries of 
the Row. I stopped, and bending down, saw that the 
figure was that of a man. His head was towards the 
open street, touching the rails of the gallery, and the 
snow-flakes were falling thickly upon it. I spoke to 
him, and tried to move him, but he did not answer 
me, and gave no signs of life. I feared that some 
poor houseless creature had fallen dead, or receiv- 
ed a death-blow there ; and kneeling down beside 
him, I at last succeeded in turning him round and 
partly raising him. I held my lantern close to his 
face, to see if I could recognize him, but the face was 
that of a stranger. The strong glare of the intense 
and concentrated light upon his eyes awoke him, for 
he was not dead ; he was dead-drunk. He opened his 
eyes, and at the same instant a deep curse issued from 
his lips. He could not see me, for I knelt in the dark- 
ness, and all the light being turned upon his own face, 
deepened the shadows around me, but a name was 
coupled with the awful name of that most holy Being 
which he profaned by that frightful curse, and that 
name was my own. He was cursing me in the name 
of God — doubtless in those first stirrings of returning? 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 235 

consciousness, pursuing the theme which had furnish- 
ed the conversation of the set he had just quitted. I 
scarcely knew what to do with the wretched drunkard 
at that early hour, and at a distance from my own 
house ; but on looking out into the street, I saw that 
the ostlers were leading forth the horses from the 
stables of the Feathers' Inn, to be in readiness for the- 
arrival of the Welch mail-coach. With the assistance 
of one of the ostlers, I raised the drunken man, and 
had him taken to the warm stables, the ostler kindly 
promising to keep him there, and take care of him 
till the day broke, and his intoxication had passed off. 
He came, I learnt, from a village about two miles 
from Chester, and had been drinking deep at some 
public-house all the night. Had he fallen, on that 
inclement morning by the road-side in the open coun- 
try, the dawning light would probably have shone 
upon his breathless corpse. 

While I feel thus constrained to bear this testimony 
to the infatuation on the subject of the race-course, a 
mania which cannot be stronger in any other place, I 
rejoice to add that there are a large proportion of the 
inhabitants of that ancient city, persons born and bred 
within its walls, who have never yet been present at 
a single race. And the strong representations made 
from the pulpit and in other ways by the faithful min- 
isters of the place, are not without their effect. I may 
mention one instance from my personal knowledge, of 
a young girl of fifteen, then belonging to my own con- 
gregation. She was thoroughly convinced of the in- 
sonsistency of attending the races with the profession 
of a disciple of Jesus Christ, and she begged to decline 



236 THE RACE-COURSE 



ever again attending them. Her request was not 
complied with ; and against her will she was taken. 
But I was told the fact by her own mother — she said, 
'' You may take me with you, if you will : but on 
this I am determined ; nothing shall induce me to be- 
hold any thing that goes on there." And with a 
decision which won for her the admiration even of 
those who had compelled her to go, she kept her eyes 
closely shut till the carriage was driven away from 
the course. 

There are, I am sorry to say, too many, however, 
who, though tliey never attend the race-course, make 
a point of promoting the races, on the plea that the 
influx of company, and their residence in the town 
during the week, is good for the trade of the place. 
They give up, in fact, the ungodly pleasure, but they 
cannot make up their minds to give up the ungodly 
gain : though with regard to the question of gain, I 
have been assured by some of the most respectable 
men of the city, that the benefit to trade is far from 
being so great as is supposed ; the keepers of inns, and 
other houses of public entertainment, and the owners 
of lodgings being the chief gainers. Houses are often " 
taken for gambling-rooms and other vile purposes, and i 
the full yearly rent paid fur them, though they are i 
occupied but for that one week. I remember an in- f 
stance of one house being hired during the last race- 
week when I was resident in Chester, and completely | 
furnished, gas pipes even being laid down in the house, 
for the single week. 

I was always reminded by the clamor, which any j 
decided opposition to the races and their abundant 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 237 

abominations met with from some parties, of the 
uproar which was raised in heathen Ephesus, when 
'' there arose no small stir about that way," and a 
plausible tradesman of the city, named Demetrius, 
dreading lest the preaching of the gospel of our blessed 
Redeemer should deprive him of his gains, addressed 
his fellow-tradesmen with these words — '' Sirs, ye 
know that by this craft we have our wealth." The 
injury to his trade and to his gains, was to him an 
insuperable objection to the spread of the gospel in his 
native city. This was what might be expected among 
heathens and idolaters, but we do wonder at the per- 
version of professed Christians, in allowing such a 
consideration to weigh with them, or in supposing that 
a blessing can rest upon ungodly gain from Him, who 
has solemnly assured us, that covetousness is idolatry, 
and the covetous man an idolater. 

It was not from any spirit of this kind : but from 
mingled good nature and timidity, that a highly res- 
pectable and pious man, for whom I felt a sincere es- 
teem, continued to give a yearly subscription to the 
tradesman's race-cup. Initials only, and the name of 
the row in which he dwelt, with the subscription 
given, being published in the list of those who openly 
subscribed to the cup. This led me to suspect who it 
was. Taking the newspaper in my hand, I went to 
him, and pointing to the initials, asked him plainly if 
they were his. He replied with perfect frankness, that 
he was ashamed to say they were. ^^ And yet you 
disapprove of all such proceedings," I said. " I do 
indeed," he replied, '' I have never been at a race in 
my life, nor would any thing induce me to attend 



238 THE RACE-COURSE 



one." " But the races are good for the trade of the 
city," I continued : " and therefore you deem it ex- 
pedient to support them !" " No, indeed. Sir," he re- 
plied, " I was actuated by no such motive. The sim- 
ple truth is this : that my predecessor in this business 
was in the habit of giving that sum annually, and 
without thinking much about the matter, I continued 
the custom. At these last races, however, I declined 
giving any thing : but the friendly neighbors who 
waited upon me, and with whom I am upon the best 
terms, urged me so strongly, that I literally had not 
the courage to refuse them ; and having unfortunately 
expressed a strong objection to appearing as an advo- 
cate of practices of which I disapproved," — '' That 
may be easily managed," they said ; " we need not 
publish your name, only give us your subscription. I 
am ashamed to say, I consented. This is the fact." 
'' Surely, my friend," I replied, " the more manly 
way would have been to give your name, or to with- 
hold your subscription ; for by doing as you have 
done, you were bringing a slander upon your Christian 
profession." ''You are right. Sir," he replied, ''and 
I thank you for the lesson you have given me. The 
thins: is settled from this moment. I will not aofain 
subscribe to the Chester races." He kept his word. 

" And now, in concluding this chapter, I would say ' 
to some of my readers, in the city of Chester — for I 
know that I shall have many there — that I lay the 
foregoing facts before them, a few out of the many 
which I could bring forward ; and with all respect and 
affection, I ask them to give a quiet consideration to 
my statements. It is not possible that they can have 



AND ITS ACCOMPANIMENTS. 239 

known as much as I have known of these evils, — for 
such they are. My calling and my position when 
among them, brought me necessarily in contact with 
them. And if they are facts, — and I pledge my word 
to the truth of them,— then I would ask any man, 
whose Christian profession is not a mere mockery of 
what is good and sacred, whether such facts are not 
arguments that cannot be refuted ? I am well aware 
that the race-mania has increased of late years ; and 
that all the evils which I speak of, have reached a 
fearful height : things were much worse when I left 
Chester, than they had ever been before ; and there 
appeared to be a more determined spirit to defy and 
put down all opposition offered by the religious portion 
of the community. But I would reiriind them that 
this is usually the case, when evils are at their height. 
It is then as with the stream of the old Chester river, 
that the tide is about to turn. 

It was well said in a sermon preached from my 
pulpit during the race-week, by a true benefactor of 
the people of Chester ; ''If money which God gave 
for the relief of the poor and the extension of His gos- 
pel through the world, has been applied for the pur- 
pose of covetousness, sensuality and lust . if all the 
worst passions of the corrupted heart of man, have 
been brought into a livelier exercise by the excitement 
of the scene, and the emulations of the race-course ; 
if cheating, lying, swearing, cursing, hatred, envy, and 
malice, have been the employments of the week; and 
I the abundance of God's gifts has been made the occa- 
sion of more than ordinary ungodliness; if this has 
been the case — and who will venture to deny it? — is 



240 THE RACE-COURSE 



there not reason why the overflowings of ungodliness 
should make us afraid ? And might we not fear, while 
we look on the state of things around us, and compare 
the practice of the day with the privileges possessed, 
that the language which we might be doomed to hear, 
should be only this : " Shall I not visit for these things, 
saith the Lord ; and shall not ray soul be avenged on 
such a nation as this ?" 

' In these moments then,' he continues, ' when the 
overflowings of ungodliness make us afraid, I look to 
the withdrawal of blessings, rather to the infliction of 
punishment ; to the loss of privilege, rather than to 
actual sufferings ; but under that impression, I think 
it impossible to look to such scenes as these, thus 
patronized and thus supported, without feeling that 
we are forfeiting glories, which we had hoped were to 
be ours ; that we are throwing away that character of 
a wise and understanding people, which we were pre- 
pared to claim ; and that we cannot be the people of 
whom the Lord says; ''This is the people that I 
have formed for myself; they shall show forth my 
praise.'""^ 

^ See a Sermon preached at St. Peter's Church, Chester, May 6, 
1846, by the Rev. H. Raikes, Chancellor of Chester ; on the Overflow- 
ings of Ungodliness. 



CHAPTER XVI, 

. HUMILITY. 

If there is one of the lovely graces of the christian 
characterj for which the minister of Jesus Christ has 
need more particularly to pray, both for himself, and 
for others, it is humility. But, alas, when we search 
our own hearts, we are constrained to confess, with 
shame and sorrow, that in nothing are we so miserably 
wanting, as in humility ; and when we go forth among 
our fellow-m.en, then both in the ministers, and in the 
other members of the church, we find no grace so rare 
as humility. It is but as a lowly plant among the 
shrubs and flowers of the garden, where its leaves are 
freshest, and its growth most vigorous, but we too 
commonly find it dwarfed and sickly — it is the neg- 
lected plant of the garden ; and yet what so becomes 
a fallen creature, who in himself is nothing — from 
himself has nothing — as that deep and thorough con- 
viction of his own nothingness, which partly consti- 
tutes humility. That grace, however, which is de- 
clared to be peculiarly the mind that was in Christ 
Jesus, is the very grace which most of his professed 
disciples discard, or take no account of. If it is a ques- 
tion of no less interest than importance, why does the 
inspired Apostle dwell upon this feature in the charac- 
ter of our blessed Lord, and describe it as the mind 
that was in Christ Jesus ? Was it because its being 
11 



242 HUMILITY, 



found at all in Him, who thought it not robbery to be 
equal with G-od, and was and is God, is altogether 
most astonishing ; for He was the only son of man 
who had wherefore to glory in Himself. But it is one 
of the marvels of His humanity, that in Him alone 
this grace was seen in its perfection. It is no matter 
of surprise, that Christ was truth, love, purity, good- 
ness, these are the very attributes of God, but humili- 
ty is no attribute of Christ, as God. He has made it, 
however, the attribute of God as man — and in coming 
down from heaven to earth, and taking the form and 
fashion of a man, He was graciously pleased to show, 
in his own deep humility, that every fallen creature, 
who had been rescued and restored by His death, and 
renewed by His Spirit, and conformed to His image, 
must excel in this grace. Thus it was that the inspir- 
ed Apostle, after saying to the Church at Philippi, 
'' Let nothing be done through strife and vain glory ; 
but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better 
than themselves ;" adds this exhortation to the imita- 
ting of the character of Jesus : '' Let this mind be in 
you, which was also in Christ Jesus ;" but I repeat, 
wherever we go, we find no grace so rare. There is 
no lack of zeal, of earnestness, of faith, love, and many 
other graces, but we look too often in vain for humili- 
ty. And yet in those, who have put on humbleness 
of mind, how graceful is the garment they wear, how 
peculiarly becoming to a once lost, fallen, wretched 
sinner, who is saved by grace alone, and stands by 
grace alone, who has nothing whereof to glory in him- 
self, but can glory in Christ alone ! But as it is usually 
with the highest in intellect, so is it with the holiest 



HUMILITY. 243 



in spirit ; they are the humblest in their own eyes. 
The truly holy man is the man who has received the 
most grace, and G-od does not give grace to the proud. 
^' He resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the hum- 
ble." The holy man is therefore humble and meek, 
like his Divine master ; he has learnt to deal tenderly 
with his fallen brethren, to be kind, gentle, patient, 
with the failings and infirmities of others, for he can- 
not forget who has made him to differ ; and he is ready 
to make allowances, and to suspend his judgment ; and 
instead of pushing and jostling to take the highest place, 
he stands out of the way, to let others take the chief 
place ; he is willing to be passed by unnoticed, and to 
be nothing ; and we shall find him quietly seated in 
the lowest room, quite contented to remain there, till 
it shall please his beloved Lord, to come to him and 
say, " Friend, go up higher." 

I love to dwell upon the words of a distinguished 
Lady of high rank, the sister of the Honorable Robert 
Boyle ; they were found in her diary — " Lord, I am 
not humble ; give me grace that I may be humble, 
and when thou hast me made humble, then give me 
more grace, for thou givest grace to the humble." 

One who had observed, with a fine discrimination, 
the character of her friend, the highly-gifted and 
eminently spiritual Duchess de Brogiie, thus explains 
the secret of that profound humility, for which she w^as 
distinguished: — ''Although she excelled others in so 
many ways, she was ti'uly humble ; for her thoughts 
were fixed, not on what she possessed in the eyes of 
men, but on what she wanted in the sight of God." 

The very opposite might be said of many among 



244 HUMILITY. 



US ; for the false estimate which men take of them- 
selves, is usually at the root of their pride. Their 
minds are occupied by what they excel in before men, 
rather than by what they are wanting in before God. 

Many years have passed away since I was requested 
to visit a lady of rank, who was an earnest inquirer 
after the truth. She was very ill, but as it appeared, 
not in immediate danger. .Her disorder wore a mys- 
terious character. There was much diflerence of 
opinion about it in the minds of the medical men who 
attended her ; and some of them spoke with confidence 
of her ultimate recovery. One of her friends, who 
was deeply interested in her spiritual welfare, was the 
person that had invited me to visit her, and she 
accompanied me in my first interview with her. 

Lady was even then one of the loveliest persons 

I have ever seen. It was not the mere beauty of forin 
or feature, — and yet she was exceedingly beautiful — 
but a feminine grace and refinement, a simple 
elegance which is rarely seen even in the most high- 
bred of our nobility. 

She said little on that day ; her only son was with 
her ; and no opportunity was given me of introducing 
the subject of my visit. But a few days after I again 
called on her, and T found her alone. Her every look 
showed that she was suff'ering keenly and deeply from 
the conviction of her guilt in the sight of God. She 
had been brought to see the corruption of her own 
heart, and the vanity and sinfulness of her past un- 
godly life ; but, of that peace which calms the distur- 
bed and trembling spirit, and of which the Apostle 
speaks, w^hen he says — '' Being justified by faith, we 



HUMILITY. 245 



have peace with Grod, through our Lord Jesus Christ" 
— it can spring from no other source — of that peace, 
she knew nothing. 

She said that she had been told by a well-known 
and excellent clergyman, whom she named, and who 
had visited her, that she mast see her sins forgiven, 
and know herself to be a child of G-od ; " but this I 
cannot do," she added. '^T believe that Christ is all- 
sufficient to forgive even my sins, but I cannot say 
that I see them forgiven ; indeed I know my heart too 
well to suppose that, in my present sinful and un- 
humbled state, I am a pardoned child of G-od." I saw 
that she had mistaken the clergyman of whom she 
spoke, and perhaps he had somewhat mistaken her. 
After some conversation, in which I entreated her not 
to add to her other sins, a distrust in the willingness, 
as well as the power of the Son of Man to forgive all 
her sins ; but to pray that He would give her more 
grace, and increase her faith, I pointed out to her and 
read with her, some of those portions of Holy Scripture 
which appeared to me most suited to her case, and 
prayed that G-od would graciously bring her, by the 
teaching of His word, and of the Holy Spirit, to sound 
and clear views of the only way of salvation to His 
fallen creatures. 

I thought of a book which seemed to me admirably 
suited to meet her case — a volume by that Master in 
Divinity, Dr. Owen, his Commentary on the 130th 
Psalm, of which Mr. Bickersteth has given tliis opinion 
— " It is one of the fullest displays of evangelical 
forgiveness we have ever met with." Some of my 
readers may remember a beautiful passage in that 



246 HUMILITY. 

precious Commentary " A sin-entangled soul is oft- 
times reduced to this condition, in looking out for 
relief ; it can discover nothing but this, that Grod is 
able, and can. if He graciously please, relieve and 
acquit him. All other support, or springs of relief, are 
shut up, or hid from him. The springs indeed may 
be nigh, as that was to Hagar : but their eyes are 
withheld, that they cannot see them. Wherefore, 
they cast themselves on God's sovereign pleasure, and 
say vrith Job, ' Though He slay us, we will put our 
trust in Him.' We will not let Him go. In ourselves 
we are lost, that is unquestionable ; how the Lord 
will deal with us, we know not : we see not our signs 
and tokens any more : evidences of God's grace in us, 
or of His love and favor to us. are all out of sight. 
To a present special interest in Christ, we are stran- 
gers ; and we lie every moment at the door of eternity. 
What course shall we take ? What way shall we 
proceed ? If we abide at a distance from God, we shall 
assuredly perish. Who ever hardened himself against 
Him and prospered ? Xor is there the least relief to 
be had, but from and by Him ; for who can forgive 
sins but God ? We will then bring our guilty souls 
into His presence, and attend the pleasure of His 
grace : and what He speaks concerning us, we will 
willingly submit to. And this sometimes proves an 
anchor to a tossed soul ; which, though it gives it not 
rest and peace, yet it saves it from the rock of despair. 
Here it abides, until light more and more break forth 
upon it.'' 

It appeared to me that passages like this, from that 
deeply experimental book, were exactly suited to the 



HUMILITY. 247 



earnest and troubled spirit of this anxious inquirer. 

Lady was a woman of superior mindj and, while 

careless readers, unawakened to their danger, might 
have taken no interest in deeply searching and experi- 
mental discussions on the point of assurance, she was 
tremblingly alive to this subject, and full of anxiety 
about it. But I may tell my reader that I gave the 
book, admirable as it is, only as a humble human 
handmaid to the word of the living G-od. We ought 
always to impress upon our people, that they must 
beware of the influence of any book, but the one In- 
spired Volume. We ought to urge them to guard the 
Holy Scriptures with a watchful jealousy, and to turn 
from all other books again and again to that pure 
spring of Divine truth. Who is there that can say he 
reads or rather searches the Scriptures as frequently, 
or as sufficiently, as he might easily search them ? 
Who is there that can say he knows enough, or can 
ever know enough, of their Divine wisdom ? Ah ! if 
we really felt their value, and our own high privilege, 
we should regard less as a duty than a delight, the 
command of our blessed Lord, to search the Scriptures. 
There is no influence of life or power in any book but 
the word of Grod — -but alas, even the written v/ord 
will be to the inquirer but as a dead letter till the 
eyes of his understanding be enlightened and opened 
by the Holy Spirit. 

Peace and assurance were not soon attained by 
this sincere follower of our Lord. She read the trea- 
tise of Owen, and she continued to search the Inspired 
Word, but she was called upon to wait the Lord's 
time, and more than four years were to pass away 



248 HUMILITY. 



before the peace she yearned to find from the assur- 
ance of hope, was granted to her. It was not all at 
once that a spirit long entangled in the ways of a 
world at enmity with God, was to be brought into 
the liberty of his dear children — and those four years 
were to be a season of severe bodily suffering, as well 
as spiritual distress. She had also been misled by 
erroneous instruction on some points of vital import- 
ance. This I discovered from her conversation, and 
from some of the books which had been given to her, 
and this added to the difficulty of her disentangle- 
ment. 

Her views were clear on one subject alone, her own 
great sinfulness before Grod, her entire unworthiness in 
His sight. It seemed indeed, as if the Holy Spirit, 
bavins: brought a vital conviction into her heart on 
this point, had, in His mysterious wisdom, left that 
conviction to sink and to settle there, before He again 
visited her. But not a murmur passed her lips. Un- 
der all her severe bodily and mental sufferings, so far 
from deeming herself hardly dealt with, she seemed 
penetrated to the soul by a sense of God's great good- 
ness to her. The dispensation \vith which she was 
visited, was peculiarly a humbling one, and she felt 
and owned she needed it. Her natural disposition, 
was however cheerful, and even buoyant, and it was 
truly astonishing to see, how, after some season of 
torturing pain, she would rally from the exhaustion it 
produced, and speak with cheerfulness of the cause 
she had to be thankful for such sweet intervals of 
comparative ease. 

After havinsr visited her constantlv for some 



HUMILITY. 249 



Jnonths, I was unexpectedly called to quit the curacy 
I then held, and subsequently to settle for several 
years in a distant part of England. I heard from her 
occasionally during the few last years of her life which 
succeeded, and I was enabled to see her two or three 
times. Her letters were WTitten in pencil, by a few 
lines at a time, when she felt equal to that slight ex- 
ertion. She was so very weak, that, at her request, I 
had procured a Bible for her in sheets, that she might 
have but a few light pages to hold in her hand, as she 
lay ; for she was unable to bear the weight of a book. 
Her illness increased after my departure, and as the 
only nourishment she was permitted to take, was 
scarcely sufficient to keep her from starving, she was 
reduced almost to a shadow of her former self. A 
long time had elapsed since she had written to me, and 
from the accounts which I received, the time of her 
death seemed close at hand. I was however, aston- 
ished, on opening my letters, one morning, to find a 

letter from Lady . It was written, as usual, in 

pencil — but it commenced by her telling me, that she 
was surprisingly better. ^' My doctors." she writes, 
" changed the medicines, and gave me indeed scarcely 
any medicine, except some strong acid, and a great 
deal of lemon juice. The experiment has succeeded 
so well, that it has continued ever since, with great 
success. I am often quite free from pain, much 
stronger, and have even got out into the open air. I 
do not attempt to describe to you my feelings on this 
apparent restoration to life, for I had so long kept my 
thoughts fixed on death, and all relating to it, that it 
sometimes seems like a dream to me that I am alive, 



250 



HUMILITi'. 



and in the air, seeing again the sky and the trees. I 
had been in a state of suffering for three years, and 
during the last twenty months, seldom out of my bed. 
unless when carried like a child, to be laid on that in 
the next room. I do not, however, think myself sure 
of recovery, because I am better : but surely it would 
be ungrateful not to hope for it, when there is such a 
relief from pain. But it may be the will of God to try 
me further, by calling me to resign my life ; or to more 
severe suffering after a temporary abatement of my 
complaint. ^Yhatever may be His will, I pray that I 
may be resigned to it with the same strong sense I 
now have of His infinite goodness and mercy, and that 
I may believe that all is done, which is best and kind- 
est for me. You will understand me when I say how 
fearful I am, lest I should forget how much I have to 
be grateful for. l\Iay God keep me humble, keep me 
penitent^ and make me grateful I I repeat this prayer 
continually. You have prayed for me in my sufferins^. 
offer this pra} er for me now, my dear friend, and if it 
should please God to restore me to some degree of 
health, do not forget me then in your prayers. 

'* There was a beautiful storm here, two evenings 
ago. How I admired it I how forcibly it called to my 
recollection times, when I have thought ; * this is pro- 
bably the last storm I shall see in this state of exist- 
ence. When I see lightnings again, where will thev 
be ? and what shall I be ?' Such reflections, how- 
ever, at the time, were not depressing to me. I have 
suffered much, and for a long time. I have known 
that my case was considered hopeless by many, and 
lately doubtful by the most sanguine of my physi- 



HUMILITY. 251 



cians. I have been sometimes very near death, and 
during the whole of my illness I have been quite alone. 
My thoughts have been constantly on death, but my 
spirits have been good, and I am now, contrary to all 
hope, appearing likely to recover a certain degree of 
health. For the comfort I have found in religion, I 
am, by the blessing of God, much indebted to you. 
May G-od bless you for it, and prosper your endeavors 
to be equally useful to others. How I wish you were 
here now to help me to improve this time ! I do not 
know when I last wrote to you, but one day is to me, 
so like another, that I scarcely know how the time 
passes. I am obliged to continue very quiet and to 
see nobody ; but I am so accustomed to living alone, 
that I do not wish to see any one. I am afraid it is 
not probable you will be in this neighborhood again, 
at present ; but if you are, pray contrive to corne to 
see me. How I do wish (now I hope that I may live) 
tliat you had remained at — —. Pray let me hear 
from you. 

Yours . 

July 13th. 

Soon after I received this letter, I saw Lady , 



she had been sitting in a garden-chair, under the old 

elms at , and enjoying the soft air as it came 

freshened from the broad stream of the Thames, and 
waved the luxuriant foliage of those fine old trees. 
She was returning to her quiet room, when I met her, 
and was fatigued by the exertion, but received me 
with her usual beautiful smile, and said ' that she had 
continued wonderfully better. Bat I have been a 



252 HUMILITY. 



great sufferer since I saw you,' she added, — ' during a 
whole year my tongue has been so painfully swollen, 
(probably from the medicine she had taken) that I have 
not been able to keep my mouth shut.' She was cer- 
tainly better ; but I was shocked to observe the change 
which her illness had produced in her. She seemed 
to have become almost an old person since I had last 
seen her. Her complexion, which had been fair and 
clear as stainless ivory, had become sallow ; her large 
hazel eyes were sunk under her brow ; her dark ches- 
nut hair had turned grey, and her pearly teeth, yellow. 
But her voice, which was always peculiarly sweet, 
had retained all its soft musical tones, and her manner 
still possessed that simple and indescribable charm, 
which had before distinguished it. We conversed 
chiefly, nay, almost exclusively, on one subject ; and 
she did not conceal the delight she felt in the revived 
hope of prolonged life, trusting as she said, that Grod 
would graciously enable her to prove the sincerity of 
her profession, by living entirely to Him. But all she 
said, was in accordance with her prayer, ' Lord, keep 
me humble, keep me penitent, and make me thankful.' 
She was unable to bear a long visit from me ; I saw 
this, and after praying with her, and solemnly com- 
mending her to &od, I took my leave. 

Her apparent recovery was not of long continuance ; 
it was followed by a relapse to far greater suffering 
than she had before endured ; and her weakness was 
so extreme, that her exhausted frame was now less 
able to bear up against the force of the disease. She 
wrote to me again — ' T am ashamed to think how long 
it is since I received your kind letter ; but if you 



HrMlLITY. 253 



knew how ill and weak I feel, you would not wonder 
that I did not write. Inflammation came on again^ 
and I have never been so well since. I felt the dis- 
appointment very much- — much more than I ought to 
have done. It imsettled me so much for a time, that 

at my request, my kind friend Mrs. S , wrote for 

me to your bookseller, to inquire if you were still in, 
or any where near London ; intending, if you were, to 
request you to come to see me : but you were gone to 

H 1. I thank G-od, my mind is easy and resigned 

now.' This relapse was doubtless needed, and sent in 
love by Him who saw that heavy chastening was the 
furnace-fire by which He would refine her as silver is 
refined, and try her as gold is tried. As she had fre- 
quently told me, she felt that such severe chastening 
was quite necessary. She deplored, with mmch 
heaviness of heart, the temptation by which she was 
often tried, to neglect reading the word of Grod, 
* When I do read,' she said, ' it seems to me as if I 
were performing a task, and I sometimes secretly wish 
that I coald turn to some other book ; but this I 
would not do.' She complained also, that she could 
not keep her attention fixed to the whole of a chapter ; 
and that, after having read it, she felt as if all that 
she had been reading, was gone from her. 

I strongly urged upon her to read only one or two 
verses of holy Scripture at a time ; and to pray for 
grace to delight in them, and to profit by them ; and 
to keep those few verses before her mind, revolving 
them over, and over, dwelling and meditating upon 
them, and continuing to pray till those precious words 
were brought home to her heart, in their Divine power 



254 HUMILITY. 



and comfort. She did so, and found, as all who do 
this, have found, how entirely the plan succeeded. 

I saw her once again : she appeared to be brought 
almost as low as it was possible for any human 
creature to be brought, and yet to be alive. I went 
at an early hour in the day, and her first question 
was, how long I could remain with her ? I told her, 
almost the whole of the day. She smiled, and said, 
since such was the case, she would ask me to come 
and read and pray with her for a very short time, and 
then to leave her, and return again when she had 
gained strength to listen again to the word of God. 
*^ Forgive my asking this ; but you will find," she 
said, " that I am obliged to request this favor of you. 
The only nourishment which I am now able to bear, is 
a very small quantity of ass's milk, and this is always 
followed by sickness. "Will you kindly promise me 
the moment the attack comes on, not to come near me, 
but to ring for my maid, and till she appears, not to 
leave the bell, and to leave me then immediately ; but 
pray do not leave me till then. The sudden attacks of 
sickness of which she spoke, did indeed come on re- 
peatedly during that day, and I was obliged to leave 
her several times. After implicitly following her di- 
rections I waited in the adjoining room for another 
summons. In those interviews, I was rejoiced to find 
that the work of the Divine Refiner was, to all ap- 
pearance, nearly accomplished. That peace also, 
which is the fruit of faith in Christ Jesus, that assur- 
ance of His forgiveness to herself, which she had never 
dared to appropriate till then, she now possessed in no 
common measure. 



HUMILITY. 255 



One of her most esteemed friends, the Rev. Mr. 

E , had come from a distance, to see her once 

again ; and from a remark which he had made, she 
had been enabled to receive for herself the clear and 
scriptural doctrine, which she had often heard stated 
before, but had never been able to realize. The Divine 
Comforter had, doubtless, opened her understanding to 
understand his word : for till then, her eyes were 
holden, and on that point she knew him not. She 
was full of faith and hope, and the peaceful calm 
which seemed shed over her whole spirit, was truly 
marvellous. But it was G-od's work, and what is 
marvellous to us, is easy to Him ! She told me that 
she had still one fear ; the dread lest her faith should 
give way at the moment of her departure. '' As for 
this poor vile body," she said, " I care nothing about 
it. It would not distress me to know that it would 
be put into a sack, and thrown into a ditch when I am 
dead ; and after death, I thank Grod, through Jesus 
Christ our Lord, I no longer fear to be absent from the 
body ; for I believe that I shall be present with Him. 
But I have a dread, even to terror, of that mysterious 
moment when the body and the soul will be separated. 
Yes, I will pray against this fear," she continued, in 
answer to some observation which I had made, " and 
I will strive with His help to believe, that He who has 
been love and mercy to me, during the whole of my 
past unprofitable life, will not forsake me then." 

Changed indeed she was — changed in appearance 
from the still beautiful person she had been when I 
first saw her ; frightful had been the inroads of that 
fatal disease, even during the interval since our last 



S56 HUMILITY. 



meeting. Her face had apparently shrunk to half its 
former size ; her head was entirely uncovered, the 
slightest covering being heating and oppressive to the 
brain ; her grey hair v^as cut as short as it could be 
without being shaved ; her bed was spread over with 
white oiled-silk, on account of the sudden vomiting 
she was constantly seized with, and the oiled-silk cov- 
ered even the large soft Cashmire shawl, whose white 
folds were wrapt round her. Still the delicate refine- 
ment which had struck me, whenever I had seen her, 
remained, and her calm, sweet cheerfulness, though 
subdued by intense pain and weakness, had not disap- 
peared. Her prayer had been answered. She had in- 
deed been kept humble and penitent, and thankful ! 

One remark which she made, was truly character- 
istic of her state. " I talked to you of being humble,'' 
she said, " when last we met, but I have now learnt 
that humility is not a thing to be talked about." She 
was still alone. Her doctors could not permit even 
her two children to be with her. That last day which 
I spent with her was the Lord's day, and its calm 
peacefulness seemed to harmonize well with the peace 
which the Lord of that day had shed over her spirit. 
Her sufferings were not protracted much longer. A 
letter from her daughter soon brought me the tidings 
of her death. That dread of some mysterious trial, of 
which she had spoken to me, and under which she 
feared lest her trust in Grod should give way, had 
proved entirely groundless. Her prayer had been 
heard. Her heavenly Father had not suffered her at 
her last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Him. 
During the last week of her life, her son and daughter 



HUMILITY. 257 



had been with her. She was so perfectly calm, that 
they were permitted to remain with her altogether. 
She had sunk so gradually, that for three or four days 
she was scarcely able to speak ; but she had continued 
to derive great comfort from hearing the word of G-od 
occasionally read to her, and to the very last her lips 
were moving in prayer. 

I have introduced the above sketch into this vo- 
lume, thinking that these pages may fall into the 
hands of some, as high-born, as beautiful, and as 

graceful, as Lady . But no, there are perhaps 

very few, who in loveliness of person, and sweetness 
of manner, could be compared with her. One of the 
few beloved friends, whom she continued to see during 
the whole of her illness, the same lady who had first 
taken me to her, told me that her dying friend, and 
the celebrated Lady ^ ^ =^, who was reckoned the most 
beautiful woman in England for some years, '' came 
out," as it is termed, in the same spring ; but that by 
many. Lady ^ ^ ^ was thought the lovelier of the two. 

Thus it is then that w"e, who are the ministers of 
(xod, are brought, by our office, into scenes where the 
world does not enter, and could give many a warning 
from what we have seen and heard, which might 
make the most heedless spirit thoughtful, and appal 
the stoutest heart. 

Others may behold only a light-hearted and joyous 
throng assembled together, as on some gay festival- 
day. But see the end of these things. We are as 
those, who stand at the gate, by which one after one 
of that careless multitude pass out into a dreary and 



258 nu.vnLiTY. 



unknown region. Surely it may be well for a voice 
from the gate to be sometimes heard by that heedless 
throng, reminding them that the fashion of this world 
passeth away — telling them of what we have wit- 
nessed at the g-afe, and warning them before it is too 
late that their turn must also come — that it may 
come soon, and come suddenly — when they will be 
forced, each one to obey the mysterious summons, 
which shall bid them to come forth and separate them- 
selves from their companions, to pass alone — quite 
alone — through the gate— even the gate and grave of 
death. For their glory, and their multitude, and their 
pomp, and he that rejoiceth. shall descend into it. 
Many may be as indifferent, as ungodly, as Lady 

was in the days of her youth and beauty, but 

few may have the benefit — for such it was — of the 
years which were afforded her : few the privilege of 
being called through much tribulation to enter into 
the kingdom of G-od. ^Vould that they could have 
seen her, the mere wreck of what she had once been ; 
would that they could have seen the deep sorrow with 
which she regarded her vain and unprofitable course I 
But it is not the sight or the knowledge of these 
things which change the heart ; they sadden or they 
shock the feelings. Of themselves they can do no 
niore. It is the province and the prerogative of the 
Lord G-od alone to transform a sinful creature, by the 
renewing of the mind, and the conversion of the heart. 
But they that would experience the power of this 
transforming grace, have the means aflorded them. 
A single, earnest, heart-felt prayer for the Holy Spirit, 
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, will always as- 



HUMILITY. 259 



cend to a throne of grace, and will not fail to be an- 
swered by Hira, who is ever more ready to hear than 
we to pray. 

The sketch which follows may present to my reader 
a striking contrast to the account which I have given 

of Lady . In one respect there was a melancholy 

resemblance between the two sufferers — they both 
sunk under the same fatal and agonising disease, 
though one more rapidly than the other. Doubtless 
the more severe and lengthened discipline of that Di- 
vine chastening was more needed by the former suf- 
ferer. The one indeed was chosen in the furnace of 
affliction ; it might be truly said of the other, that the 
Lord opened her heart while in health and strength, 
that she attended unto the things that were spoken to 
her from the word of Grod. She obeyed at once the 
Divine call that she had received, and came forth from 
the world to devote herself wholly to the service of 
Grod. She was as one, to whom an intuitive sense had 
been given, of which she was herself unconscious, that 
her sojourn on earth would be short ; and truly it 
might be said that, whatsoever her hand found to do, 
she " did it with her might, because there was no 
work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the 
grave, whither she was hastening." 

"What is strikingly evidenced in both cases, is this : 
that however varied the peculiarities of character and 
circumstances may be, the work of the Holy Spirit is 
the same in all, the effect the same, the fruit the same, 
the end also the same. 

There is nothing more refreshing to the minister 
of Christ than to find that the word which Grod has 



.<^*-. 



HUMILITY. 



permitted him to speak from His divine message, and 
in His name, has been made the power of God unto 
salvation to some one of the flock committed to his 
charge. This great work is wholly of Grod, and he 
who has been made the honored instrument in His 
hands, must, if he knows himself, be filled with aston- 
ishment that one so weak and so unworthy, should be 
permitted to see such fruit from the seed sown by him. 
His only exclamation must be; ''what hath God 
wrought !" But such an event will bring him to a 
more simple and entire dependence upon God for help, 
and a more confiding faith, both in His willingness and 
in His power to save. The minister of Christ, who 
endeavors to fulfil his high calling, ought indeed never 
to preach v/ithout earnestly and anxiously looking in 
faith for the conversion of some that are present to 
hear the preaching of the word ; for it is " God's great 
ordinance to bring sinners to Christ." We should 
never enter our pulpits without praying in faith and 
hope, that the breath of vital life may enter into the 
heart of some hearer, who has been hitherto as one of 
the slain in the valley of dry bones. It is the want 
of this confiding faith, I am convinced, which weakens 
the ministrations of some of God's otherwise faithful 
servants. They do not cast their whole care upon 
Him, in the full persuasion that He can eflfect the pur- 
poses of His infinite wisdom by the foolishness of their 
preaching, and make His word a weapon of super- 
human power in the grasp even of the feeblest hand. 
For He has commanded us to preach, and He hath 
promised to be with us to the end of the world ; and 
when Christ crucified is preached, though it be in 



HUMILITY. 261 

weakness and in fear, and in much trembling, the 
preacher praying in silence, while he speaks aloud, 
that the word of Grod may have free course and be glo- 
rified, then it frequently happens that God manifests 
His power in bringing in to the fold of the good Shep- 
herd, some lost or wandering sheep ; perhaps the very 
one, whom in our fallible judgment, we should have 
pronounced the most unlikely. 

There was a middle-aged gentlewoman whom I 
found among my congregation at -— — , plain, even to 
homeliness in her face and person ; blunt, though not 
unfeminine in her manner. She was a remarkable 

contrast to the delicate, refined, and lovely Lady . 

She was one of a family of high respectability, and in 
possession of a competent income ; and was herself a 
w^orthy but common-place character. She had been 
brought up according to the notions of a dry and old 
fashioned school of divinity : reading such books as 
good Mr. Nelson's Fasts and Festivals, and '' The 
"Whole Duty of Man," and fulfilling the daily task-vjork 
of reading the lessons and psalms for the day, with 
little of apprehension or enjoyment in so delightful an 
occupation as it might have been, had she searched 
that mine of fine gold as for hid treasure. This daily 
practice, together with a constant attendance on divine 
worship on the Lord's day, constituted her idea of 
religion. She was bountiful to the poor, and never 
could have been unkind to any one. But her evenings 
were passed in the unprofitable round of worldly 
amusements, in a provincial town. She was hedged 
round by prejudices of various kinds, and lier scheme 
of salvation was wholly of works, as natural to the 



262 HUMILITY. 



unconverted heart, as it is contrary to the glorious 
simplicity of the gospel faith. 

There is a large party of amiable and respectable 
persons within the pale of the Church of England, 
who have taken their creed, — if one may give to so 
vague and undigested a jumble of notions, the name 
of creed — from the sermons and other books of the 
kind which abounded during the last century, and 
from a class of preachers in the present day, who are 
not much clearer and sounder in their views than the 
writers of the said sermons. The whole system to 
which I allude, is as defective, as it is erroneous : 
defective, because wanting the strength and the sim- 
plicity and the fulness of divine truth ; erroneous, in 
that it places the whole scheme of salvation upon a 
wrong foundation not simply on faith, or rather on 
Christ as realized by faith ; which if a living faith, 
must be productive of good works ; but on a mixed 
system of faith and works, in which system, works 
are made what they never are in the gospel scheme, 
meritorious and not evidential. I have often wished 
that those who preach and hold such views, and who 
esteem themselves at the same time, sound members 
of the Church of England, would make themselves 
well acquainted with one sermon by a distinguished 
divine, whom they look up to as one of the bulwarks 
of our church, namely, the judicious Hooker. The 
sermon I allude to, is the one on Justification. They 
would then see that he clearly proves all such opin- 
ions to be nothing less than the doctrine of the Church 
of Rome. 

But no, I would not send them to Hooker, or to 



HUMILITY. 263 



any uninspired man, while the plan of salvation is to 
be found clearly and plainly stated in the inspired 
volume. I v^ould cite one passage more especially, as 
containing a perfect .digest of the v^hole Christian 
scheme, which is there set forth with a well-ordered 
arrangement of every point, so lucid and so masterly, 
that it is impossible, orffe might almost say, for any 
preacher who draws his doctrine fresh from the spring 
of inspired truth, to hold or to teach any other. The 
passage is this, (Eph. ii. 8, 9, 10,) ^' By grace are ye 
saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it 
is the gift of God ; not of works lest any man should 
boast : for we are His workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works, which G-od hath before or- 
dained, that we should walk in them." Here the 
great doctrine of salvation by grace, and through faith, 
is plainly and expressly stated ; and this doctrine is 
shown to be, under G-od, productive of those living 
principles of action, from which alone ^' all holy de- 
sires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed." 
Here the unscriptural objector is answered, who pre- 
sumes to say, in his vain and limited wisdom, that 
this wondrous and inspired doctrine, that we are justi- 
fied by faith, tends to licentiousness. And here an 
objector of another class is silenced, who would enter- 
tain the idle fancy that good works can spring from 
any source but that of faith in Christ crucified. As 
soon may the natural, that is, the unconverted man, 
bring forth the fruits of godliness, as a bramble bear 
grapes. 

The lady of whom I was speaking, was a total 
stranger to the simple but glorious scheme of salva- 



-% m 

m 
264 HUMILITA^ 

tion, set forth by the Apostle, in that passage in the 
Ephesians. But when she heard the doctrine plainly 
preached, it might have been said of her, that the 
preaching of it manifested itself at once to her con- 
science, as the power of God unto salvation. Without 
delay she closed with its gracious offers. For four 
years from that time, she was never absent from her 
place in the congregation, except from illness ; she 
neglected no means of grace which were offered to her, 
and her growth in spiritual life was rapid. But what 
distinguished her renewed character, was an unaffected 
humility, which is perhaps, after all, the most un- 
questionable evidence of the renewal of our fallen na- 
ture after the image of Christ — even the mind that 
was in Christ Jesus. She was really humble ; she 
never talked about humility ; she knew not that she 
was humble ; but this lowly and lovely grace worked 
like leaven through every part of her Christian charac- 
ter. She was the truly rare example of one who hav- 
ing heard the word of Grod, keeps it. She seemed 
from that time to have but one object to live for, but 
one thing to do ; to give herself up unreservedly to 
the service of God. Her unfailing cheerfulness showed 
that this was the happiness, the delight of existence 
to her. However strong the statements she heard 
from the word of God, however likely to give offence 
to the pride of the natural heart, she received them 
with meekness ; believing that as it was His word, it 
was her part to receive it, not as the word of men, but 
as it was in truth the word of God. Her life proved 
that she had received it as an engrafted word, for in 
simplicity and godly sincerity, she had her conversation 



HUx^IILITY. 265 



in the world. ''And whatsoever she did, she did it 
heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men." 

I was always struck by the earnestness and dili- 
gence with which she obeyed every exhortation of 
Scripture. She learned from thence that no man can 
serve two masters, and she instantly gave up the at- 
tempt to unite together the two opposite services. She 
learned from thence that the friendship of the Vv^orld 
is enmity with Grod ; and she gave up the friendship 
of the VN^orld. She learnt that she that liveth in plea- 
sure is dead while she liveth ; and without a hesita- 
tion she gave up the vain pleasures of a fallen world, 
to receive in exchange the sure and solid joy that the 
world cannot give. She heard that they that were 
wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps; and 
she went to buy, not when the midnight cry came, but 
long before she was summoned to meet the bride- 
groom ; so that when her call did come, and she arose 
and trimmed her lamp, it was not put out in darkness, 
but the flame rose up in full and steady effulgence, 
and the darker the night grew, the more brightly did 
her lamp burn, till the deep shadows were passed, and 
she had entered into the glory of her Lord. Above all, 
she learnt from the word of Grod, that our righteous- 
nesses are but as filthy rags ; and if she had formerly 
trusted in her own righteousness, (for few perhaps had 
been so rich in good works,) she cast them all aside, 
as being unable to save her, or as possessing any merit 
in the sight of Grod ; and though she was more than 
ever devoted to the performance of such works, it was 
from a new motive that she now acted. She did all 
to the glory of God; humbly and modestly deeming 
12 



266 HUMILITY. 



those things, which before she had counted gain, as 
loss for Christ. She did indeed live a humble, cheer- 
ful, active life. Her chief care had formerly been, for 
the bodies of the poor ; now, though her hand was 
more open than ever, her chief concern was for their 
immortal souls. 

She was not without those trials which invariably 
attend the straightforward walk of the child of G-od. 
She knew what it was to be misunderstood, misrepre- 
sented, to be forsaken by her former associates, and to 
feel almost desolate, as she told me, when she came to 
ask my advice on a subject which perplexed her. 
Alas, there were many circum.stances which might 
have shaken the faith and disturbed the peace of a less 
decided, and less humble disciple of Christ. They 
troubled her but for a little time, as stumbling-blocks 
in her path ; but that path was made so direct and so 
plain to her eyes, that she stopped but to step over 
them, and to go forward as before, with a more deter- 
mined and a meeker spirit. I had. spoken from the 
pulpit, on the subject of the approaching races, and 
endeavored to point out the inconsistency of such 
amusements with a believer's profession. On her re- 
turn home from church, she sent for her servants, who 
had been for many years accustomed to attend the 
races. She told them plainly that, seeing it to be her 
duty to G-od, she had made up her own mind never 
again to be present at any such diversions, neither 
could she consent to their going ; as she expected her 
household to follow her example, and to obey her 
wishes. Her servants had lived with her for many 
years : they had grown old in her service ; and they 



HUMILITY. 267 



took the license, which old and spoilt servants are apt 
to do ; they told her plainly, that they could not con- 
sent to obey her wishes on that point ; and they ac- 
companied their refusal with something like a taunt 
at her new notions, and her unreasonable strictness. 
But what she had said, she adhered to : with much 
kindness she told them, that she should give them a 
year to consider her orders ; and that if at the expira- 
tion of that year, they still refused to obey her, she 
should know how to value their attachment to herself, 
and their obedience to her desires ; and she should 
dismiss them from her service. The appointed time 
arrived. She again asked the question ; and two of 
them again positively refused to obey her. She kept 
her word ; and she dismissed them both immediately 
from her service. 

But the days on earth of this lowly disciple were 
numbered. The incurable disease to which I alluded, 
had begun to undermine her constitution. Its nature 
was, for some time, as unsuspected by herself, as it 
was unknown to all but her medical attendant, till 
within a few weeks of her death. The pain she suf- 
fered must have been excruciating, as the disease in- 
creased : but she was never heard to murmur. She 
went about on her visits of mercy to the sick and the 
poor, with her usual humble, cheerful spirit, finding 
an enjoyment of the highest kind in reading Grod's 
message of love and peace to them ; and supplying 
their wants with a largeness of spirit, and liberality 
of hand which seemed to increase, as the period of her 
stewardship drew towards its close. Her bodily frame 
was strong even to sturdiness, and her countenance 



268 HUMILITY. 



and general appearance gave one the idea of remarka- 
ble vigor of constitution. I have met her when the 
snow covered the ground, and its flakes were falling 
fast, coming home alone from her daily labor of love 
among the poor, and seen her countenance brightened 
by its kindly smiles on our meeting ; and I have 
tliought to myself that few women were so fitted and 
framed by nature to brave the inclemency of cold and 
wintry weather : but ah, I little knew that every step 
she took, and every eflbrt she made, were accompanied 
by the painful throbs of that secret malady. She re- 
sisted its increasing inroads with astonishing courage, 
till the torture which she underwent fairly mastered 
her, and she was forced to give way. The tidings of 
her illness and of her danger came suddenly upon us. 
She sent an affectionate message to my wife and to 
myself, begging us to come to her immediately. AVe 
found her in bed, and then learnt that she was never 
likely to leave it till her death. She was grave, but 
calm ; and spoke of her state before God, and of her 
assured and glorious hope with her usual humble, 
thankful spirit. We were constantly with her during 
the short time that intervened before her departure ; 
and we never quitted her chamber without wondering 
at her extraordinary fortitude and patience under such 
great and increasing suffering. One night, at a late 
hour, she again sent for us both. We found her in a 
dying state, but supported by the same strong faith, 
and cheered by the same assurance of hope. She was 
scarcely able to speak ; but almost the last words we 
heard from her lips were spoken in a whisper to my 
wife : " I am on the Rock." The storm was passing 



HUMILITY. 269 



over her ; the billows were rising around her ; the 
testing hour was come ; the edifice was tried to its 
depths by the assailing shock, but it stood the trial. 
It fell not, for it was founded upon The Rock. 

In humble and adoring faith her redeemed spirit 
passed from its poor suffering mortal frame, to enter 
upon its eternal rest. Two days afterwards, when I 
stood looking down upon her peaceful countenance for 
the last time, as she lay in her coffin, and thought of 
her short but decided Christian course, I saw clearly 
the wonderful mercy of Grod in all His dealings with 
her. Known unto Him was that sudden termination 
which had burst so unexpectedly upon us; and He had 
called her aside from the throng of the worldly and the 
vain, among whom she had not only lived, but of 
whom she herself was one. He had called her, not by 
affliction, but by His word and His Spirit ; and she 
had obeyed the call. She had left all to follow Him ; 
and then the affliction came, searching her spirit, and 
trying her faith. But it found her prepared to meet 
it. That affliction was indeed ordered of God, to be 
the last sanctifying ordeal by which she was to be 
purified, and made meet for that inheritance which 
Grod has prepared for all them that love the Lord Jesus 
Christ in sincerity. One short passage of holy Scrip- 
ture always seems to me descriptive of her character 
and of her course : " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, A]N'D DISSENTERS. 

The longer I live, the more does my affection deepen 
and strengthen for the Chm^ch of England : and I 
heartily thank God that I have been permitted to ex- 
ercise the office of a minister in her Establishment. I 
trust I am not blinded to her imperfections ; but I can 
find no other Church so truly in accordance with the 
word of G-od. I am aware that her enemies endeavor 
on many points to make out a case against her, but 
with very little success. Her assailants, for instance, 
on the connection between Church and State, who do 
not allow that it is the sacred duty of every Christian 
state to provide for the spiritual wants of the popula- 
tion, have been refuted, not only by unanswerable 
arguments, but by undeniable facts ; and the working 
of the voluntary principle in this country, and in the 
western states of America, where it has had a fair trial, 
appears to me to settle the question, and to prove, that 
though the voluntary principle may sometimes be 
grafted upon a Church Establishment with advantage, 
yet, if left to itself in a world like ours, it would too 
generally meet with no response from the very persons 
who are most in need of religious instruction. 

The saying of Dr. Chalmers, which is not merely 
a maxim, but an established truth, should never be 
lost sight of, by those who desire to promote the preach- 



THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, ETC. 271 

ing of the G-ospel, and the spread of the kingdom of 
our Lord Jesus Christ : namely, that while in the 
dealings between man and man, the demand creates 
the supply, the contrary is the fact with regard to the 
things of Grod, and the interest that man may take in 
them — there the supply creates the demand. We do 
not expect to find, a\id we do not find the inhabitants 
of any place coming forward in a body to entreat their 
pastor to preach to them, and to direct them, and to 
rebuke them, to urge upon them their duties, and to 
keep ever before them their privileges. We do not find 
the principles of the (rospel prevailing, and the prac- 
tice of godliness established in this way. But it is 
when the pastor exhorts them publicly and from house 
to house, instant in season and out of season, striving 
manfully against every discouragement, and praying 
to Grod to enable them to overcome every difficulty of 
opposition or indifference among the members of his 
flock : it is then that we see the flock assembling round 
their pastor, and the principles and the practice of the 
Christian faith flourishing in the place. 

As to the theories and the assertions of Dr. Ward- 
law, and other opposers of Establishments, the plain 
argument of fact and of experience is decidedly against 
them. This may be seen by all who will make them- 
selves acquainted with the well-known ^'Essays on the 
Church," published some years back. There may be, 
and I trust there will be, great reforms on many points 
connected with our Church Establishment. There are 
evils and abuses which ought not to be allowed to ex- 
ist, and reforms which wise and good men, qualified 
for the work, may, it is hoped, be appointed to carry 



272 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 



out ; but the Church Establishment itself is not a 
question at issue, except, we trust, with those who 
have not the power to introduce their own systems in 
its place, and who are doing more harm than good to 
their own cause, by their unholy and intemperate vio- 
lence. They declare, for instance, that '' a State Church 
is always a persecuting Church^^"^ — see the '^ Christian 
Witness." But the fact that they can publish the most 
malignant vituperations with impunity, and that in- 
stead of persecution, they only meet with the regrets 
of pious and good men, and the ridicule of others, is of 
itself a proof of the falsehood of their assertion. 

I would not censure those who object to our ad- 
mirable liturgy, but I think that we have clear scrip- 
tural authority for the services of our Church ; and I 
know, for my own part, that the more frequently I use 
them, the more deeply do I feel that any want of spirit- 
uality in our formularies is to be found, not in the 
liturgy, but in myself. It is an eminently scriptural 
and spiritual form of worship ; and I suspect that those 
who complain of its length and its weariness, would, 
on examining their own hearts, discover that they do 
not rise to the height of its spirituality, and that it 
does not come down to their own low and unspiritu-al 
level. It is also one great argument in favor of oui 
liturgy, that even if there should be unsound teaching, 
or an uncertain preaching from the pulpit, there is 
scriptural truth set forth from the reading-desk. 
Whenever we are gathered together in our public wor- 
ship, there is always a certain portion of the word of 
God read in the ears of the people — several of the 
psalms — a whole chapter from the Old and from tho 



AND DISSENTERS. 273 

New Testaments, besides the Epistle and Grospel for 
the day. One can scarcely refrain from smiling at the 
solemn and violent attacks that are sometimes made 
against forms of prayer, when we never find an in- 
stance of a dissenting congregation who do not employ 
forms of praise. If praise must be deemed worship of 
a higher and more spiritualized character than prayer, 
and if forms are yet objected to, as opposed to spiritu- 
ality, they must be still more unsuited for praise than 
for prayer. I have never heard in what way our dis- 
senting brethren have been able to answer the above 
argument. 

I love to express the decided and increasing prefer- 
ence I feel for our own mode of worship ; and if some of 
our careless congregations were but to do common jus- 
tice to their own beautiful Liturgy — if all were to 
kneel meekly on their knees in confession and prayer 
- — if the responses were made as with one heart and 
one voice, by all assembled — if the voices of all pre- 
sent rose in one swelling song of praise and thanks- 
giving, we should never hear complaints of the length 
or the weariness of the noble service ; but how can it 
be otherwise than wearisome to those who, though 
present, take little or no part in it, who never bend the 
knee, who never open their lips from the time they en- 
ter the house of prayer to that of their departure. A 
service without responses, and without congregational 
singing, is not the service of the Church of England. 
The Dissenters, however, should bear in mind that the 
really scriptural members of our Church are no more 
disposed than themselves to look upon our formularies 
as free from imperfection. We do not confound the 
12* 



274 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 

prayer-book with the Bible. In our opinion the Bible 
stands alone. AVe regard the scheme of doctrine, and 
the system of discipline, which is embodied in our 
Articles and Liturgy, as better, far better than any 
other, simply because to us they appear most in ac- 
cordance with the word of inspiration ; and we are 
therefore satisfied to remain within the pale of our 
establishment till a purer church can be found than 
any now existing on earth. 

There are however, two of our thirty-nine Articles 
which show at once in plainest language, what was 
the spirit of those who framed them, and what is, or 
ought to be, the spirit of those who subscribe to them. 
I allude to the sixth and the twentieth Articles. The 
sixth declares, that '^ Holy Scripture containeth all 
things necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is 
not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to 
be required of any man, that it should be believed as 
an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary 
to salvation :" the twentieth decides that '' the Church 
hath power to decree rites or ceremonies, and author- 
ity in controversies of faith : and yet it is not lawful 
for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to 
God's word written, neither may it so expound one 
place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. 
Wherefore, although the Church be a vntness and 
keeper of Holy Writ ; yet, as it ought not to decree 
anything against the same, so besides the same ought 
it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity 
of salvation." I would therefore, for my own part, 
repudiate every thing and any thing in my beloved 
Church, which is not in accordance with the word of 



AND DISSENTERS. 275 

God ; and if I am told that such being the case, I 
cannot defend a word or two here or there in our 
formularies, I would reply — ' What man on earth, or 
what body of men, will you find, who can be perfect ? 
'' If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect 
man." ' James iii. 2. And I would remind the unholy 
and uncandid who shoot forth their sharp arrows, even 
bitter words, that the Lord has said, see Isaiah xxix. 
20, 21, " The scorner is consumed, and all who watch 
for iniquity are cut off, that make a man an offender 
for a word." At the same time I would frankly avow, 
that I should rejoice to see every unscriptural and even 
dubious word that could be found in our formularies — 
if but a single word — expunged or altered. Still it 
would be at a dangerous risk in these times, for a 
council of men to be appointed to revise them ; lest 
from removing a few blemishes, almost unavoidable in 
every work of man, they should go on to change or to 
dilute some of its most important parts. We cannot 
forget the attempts of the Feathers' Tavern Associa- 
tion to obtain relief from subscription to the Thirty- 
nine Articles, in which, among others of the clergy, 
good Bishop Porteus, if I mistake not, was carried 
away. 

When we take, not a single expression, but the 
whole scope of our Articles and our Liturgy, and con- 
sider the sense of the whole, I think we shall look in 
vain for a more scriptural and evangelical scheme and 
system of Christianity, except in that one most sacred 
volume, which must ever stand aloni^., apart from, and 
above all other books. And the member of our Church 
who is told by an opponent, that in holding our Arti- 



276 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 

cles and Liturgy he is consenting to error even in a 
slight degree, may be always referred to the Articles 
which I have cited above, as expressing the views of 
himself and of his Church. Those Dissenters who 
profess to value the truth, and the liberty of conscience, 
which they now possess, may therefore thank God, that 
in the Established Church of their country (with all 
its errors in their eyes) they have a bulwark of defence 
from the tyranny of the unscriptural Church of Rome, 
a bulwark they might in vain long for, if they were 
unhappily to succeed in their unholy endeavors to 
overthrow our present Establishment. 

I will yield to no one in my attachn>ent to the Es- 
tablished Church in this country. I love her Articles, 
I love her Liturgy, I love her members — and is it pos- 
ble then that I can love those w^ho dissent from her ? 
My answer is a very plain one, I love all who love the 
Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity , and therefore I love 
many Dissenters. I may think them mistaken and 
even wrong, in some things. I do not love or approve 
of dissent, but I cannot think that any follower of our 
blessed Lord is justified in cherishing bitterness of 
feeling, or expressing himself with harshness or un- 
kindness towards his dissenting brethren. It is no ex- 
tenuation of such a spirit, to say, and to say in some 
cases with truth — that Dissenters are bitter and hos- 
tile in their conduct towards ourselves. Let it be 
even allowed that such is too often the case, — are we 
to return evil for evil, railing for railing ? I speak 
rather from the report of others than from my o\^^)l 
experience, when I say " let this be allowed." I must 
plainly declare, that in all the intercourse I have had 



AND DISSENTERS. 277 



with Dissenters, I had never met with unkindness, 
but in one instance, and never with rudeness or harsh- 
ness — but with respect and kindness even to courteous- 
ness. The one instance to which I allude was this : — > 
It is a long time ago, perhaps four-and-twenty years, 
A Dissenting minister, residing and preaching in my 
own parish, applied to me for a subscription towards 
the building or the repairs, I forget which, of his 
chapel. I replied plainly, but in a kind spirit, to his 
letter, by saying that I could not do so conscientiouslyj 
and therefore that I must decline sending him any- 
thing. I received rather a violent epistle in answer 
to mine ; my correspondent asserting, among other 
charges, which he brought against me, that in my re- 
fusal to assist him, I had violated our Lord's injunc- 
tion, '' Grive to every one that asketh ;" rather a 
strange application it seemed to me, of the broad and 
general principle of Christian liberality. But the an- 
gry writer was really a good and kind-hearted man, 
though I do not think that he did well to be angry 
My mind was made up on the subject, and I had no 
wish to continue a correspondence with him, but I 
knew that a mild answer turneth away wrath ; and I 
wrote him another and much longer letter, telling him, 
first of all, that while I could not agree to his inter- 
pretation of the Divine command, I would willingly 
have contributed to the utmost in my power, had the 
appeal been made for the relief of a dissenting brother's 
personal wants ; and that I should have deemed it a 
privilege to respond to such a call ; but I added that, 
without entering into the question whether a clergy- 
man of the Church of England was, or was not, justi- 



278 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH. 



fied in contributing to the building of a dissenting cha- 
pel, I begged to state, with all Christian affection, but 
with all candor, that I conscientiously differed from 
the views he held, and the doctrines he taught, on 
some essential points; and, therefore, that I could not 
consistently subscribe towards his chapel. Another 
letter came from the good man. It made more than 
amends for any unkindness in his former expressions, 
by the truly Christian and affectionate spirit which it 
displayed. 

It does appear to me that, whether in the presence 
or absence of dissenters, whether in our books or our 
sermons, a Christian minister and a Christian gentle- 
man is strangely forgetful of his character and calling, 
who does not seek to obey the apostolical injunction, 
^' Be courteous," and does not rather in the s})irit of 
the meekness and gentleness of Christ, beseech those 
that oppose themselves. 

There need be no compromise of our own principles, 
no appearance of agreement on any point, in which a 
conscientious and faithful churchman differs from a 
dissenter ; but when the difference is — as it usually 
happens with an orthodox dissenter — not on points of 
doctrine, but of discipline, or church government, or 
the mode of conducting Divine worship, there can be 
no possible reason why one godly man may not meet 
on friendly terms with another godly man on earth, 
for they both look forward to an eternal union in 
heaven. 

^' G-od gave Solomon largeness of heart." I often 
think of these words, when I hear the observations of 
some of our younger brethren in the ministry. They 



AND DISSENTERS. 279 



would show their wisdom in seeking this great gift, 
for it is often sadly needed. They would find this 
largeness of heart a noble preservative from those petty 
irritations, those fretting vexations, which are apt to 
ruffle the calm of the inward man, and to produce a 
spirit of unkind and unhallowed resentment towards 
fancied or real opponents. They would do v^ell to re- 
member, on many such occasions, that when the dis- 
ciples came to Jesus with this complaint, ''We saw 
one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade 
him, because he followeth not us :" our Lord replied, 
'' Forbid him not." 

A young clergyman, anxious to fulfil the duties of 
his high calling, comes, for the first time, to a parish. 
The place has been much neglected for many years. 
His predecessors have been careless and unfaithful 
men. They have never visited the people ; they have 
hurried over the Liturgy of the Church ; and their ser- 
mons have had neither sense nor soundness in them, 
but have been nothing more nor less than dull, unin- 
telligible treatises, about which the hearer has felt only 
a sense of relief when the twenty minutes were over, 
and the infliction of the dull and heartless address had 
been endured. The new rector is a different kind of 
person. He is filled with zeal for the glory of Grod and 
the salvation of the souls committed to his charge. 
He endeavors to make a full proof of his ministry, and 
his doctrine is purely scriptural, his walk exempLary ; 
but during the time of the former incumbent, a large 
dissenting chapel was built in the parish, and a portion 
of his people are dissenters, and do not seem inclined 
to leave their chapel and come to church. This is a 



280 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 



source of daily annoyance to him. He says to him- 
self, ' The dissenting minister is not wanted here, his 
work is done. He may have been useful in former 
times, and was perhaps needed then ; but now he 
ought to go. I wish his chapel were shut up. I wish 
he would not draw my flock away from me. I wish 
he would go ; and if he loved the truth, as I suppose 
he does, I think he would go.' 

I will not ask, is this right? but is this reasonable? 
The lower classes usually know little of the real points 
at issue between dissenters and churchmen. They 
begin to love and respect their new rector, and they 
may sometimes attend his church ; but they have long 
known and loved the dissenting ministc- He is a 
kind, good man, and they cannot exactly see why they 
are to leave him. Old associations, and warm attach- 
ments, influence them. They have perhaps gone to 
chapel from their childhood, and to chapel they continue 
to go. 

In such a case as this, the young clergyman will 
prove himself a wise man if he holds his peace, and 
bears his trial with meekness and gentleness. He 
may a^ssure himself of this, that he will not mend 
matters by attacking the dissenters from the pulpit, or 
complainino^ of them out of it. '' I found my parish 
full of dissenters," said a young clergyman to me, " so 
I determined to let the people know my mind on the 
subject, and I often do so." — ^^And I can tell you be- 
forehand," I replied, ^^ what has been the effect of your 
attacks from the pulpit upon dissenters ; you have 
added to their number, and thinned your own congre- 
gation." '^ Well I own it is so," he answered. ^^\nd 



AND DISSENTERS. 281 



I hardly know how it could be otherwise," I said : 
" Speak as temperately as you will — much that you 
say will be misunderstood. You will thus grieve the 
godly among them, and give importance, in their own 
eyes, to others. It is not wise or right to stir up the 
spirit of contradiction, natural to the human heart. 
We should learn to make allowances even for tho 
prejudices of others ; and you would do more by a 
kind and winning demeanor, than by all your expos- 
tulations and reproaches." I remember hearing of an 
amiable young man, who was appointed to the charge 
of a large parish, in which a great proportion of his 
flock were dissenters. He was a man of pleasing 
appearance, and an earnest preacher ; and the dis- 
senters came in large numbers to hear him. His 
spacious Church was beginning to fill ; but he heard 
that many of his congregation were still accustomed 
to go once in the day to the dissenting chapel ; and he 
told them from the pulpit, that if they did not leave 
the chapel entirely, and come altogether to Church, 
they had better stay away. Probably they would soon 
have come to Church, and were intending to do so ; 
but the consequence of his indiscreet conduct was, 
that they took him at his word, and did not come 
again to the Church. A gentleman who happened to 
be in the Church some months afterwards, told me 
that there were but sixty persons in the body of the 
church, and very few in the galleries ; and that the 
large building had a dreary look from its emptiness. 
I believe he resigned the parish soon after, and that he 
has since learnt a wiser way by his dear-bought 
experience. 



282 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 

Let me here add, that however advisable a clergy- 
man may deem it for a dissenting minister to leave 
his parish, it is not to be expected that the latter will 
be of the same mind on the subject. To say nothing 
of his differences in opinion, he has perhaps no other 
means of subsistence for his wife and children and him- 
self, but that which he derives from his occupation ; 
and as he is not likely to go, the clergyman must make 
up his mind to his remaining. The best thing that he 
can do, is to take care lest by any want of earnestness 
and diligence on his own part, comparisons should be 
drawn between them to his own disadvantage. The 
name or office of a clergyman are nothing, or less than 
nothing, unless associated with the spirit and charac- 
ter of one who aspires with all his heart to prove him- 
self, both by his preaching and living, a faithful minis- 
ter of Christ, and steward of the mysteries of God. 

If indeed a parish is extensive, and the church ac- 
commodation not sufficient for the people, the clergy- 
man's first wish may be to enlarge his own church, or 
to build another ; and this he may endeavor to do, and 
probably succeed in doing, but even then it often hap- 
pens that the church accommodation is not sufficient 
for the population of the place. It will in that case, I 
am told, be advisable to build another; advisable I 
allow, but it may not be possible to raise the money to 
do so. Ought we not then to rejoice if that portion of 
our population for whom we cannot find room in our 
chnrches, have the opportunity of hearing the gospel 
of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully preached in a dis- 
senting chapel ? For my own part, I can say from my 
heart, I should rejoice to know that my parishioners, 



AND DISSENTERS. ^. 283 



if placed in such circumstances, had the desire and the 
opportunity of hearing the truth from the lips of a 
godly dissenting minister. Souls are perishing for 
lack of knowledge, even the knowledge of Jesus Christ 
and the way of life through Him ; and there is a 
preacher of Christ crucified, with the word of Grod open 
before him, able and willing to feed them with the 
bread of life. True, he followeth not us ; but he loves 
Christ, and he follows Him. 

What says the great Apostle, " Some indeed preach 
Christ even of envy and strife ; and some also of good 
will. The one preach Christ of contention, not sin- 
cerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds ; but 
the other of love, knowing that I am set for the de- 
fence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, 
every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is 
preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will re- 
joice !"^ G-od gave to the Apostle Paul largeness of 
heart to speak thus. I must humbly thank God if He 
give me also largeness of heart to breathe the same 
spirit and to speak the same language. " Christ is 
preached," I also say, " and I therein do rejoice, yea, 
and will rejoice." But in saying this, I speak only of 
those Dissenters who preach Christ plainly and faith- 
fully ; between whom, and our own scriptural church 
the difference is in discipline, not in doctrine. There 
are two bodies of Dissenters with whom there can be 
no agreement, for the difference is of the gravest cha- 
racter. The Unitarians, who deny the Divinity of our 
blessed Ptcdeemer, and the Romanists, who make the 

* Pliil. i, 15-18. 






284 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 



word of God of none effect through their traditions 
The latter may term us heretics, but we rejoice to con- 
fess, that '' after the way which they call heresy, so 
worship we the Grod of our fathers." There is but one 
gospel, the same which is set forth and preached by 
our Lord and His inspired Apostles ; and we remem- 
ber the words of the great preacher and Apostle of 
Christ to the Gentiles, when he speaks by the Spirit of 
God of those who perverted the gospel of Christ, and 
preached ^'another gospel." He adds, ^' Which is not 
another," there being but one true gospel. " But, 
though we," he continues, '' or an angel from heaven, 
preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we 
have preached unto you, let him be accursed."^ Alas, 
it is grievous to find clergymen in our own Church, 
seeming to dread a kind of contamination from inter- 
course with orthodox and godly Dissenters, and at the 
same time regarding with complacency the monstrous 
errors of the Church of Rome. I do not hesitate to 
speak thus plainly. So far from thinking that it be- 
comes me or any clergyman really attached to our 
Church to be silent on this subject, we, as their fellow- 
ministers, are the most disgraced by their conduct, and 
it is our duty to declare openly that we cannot recog- 
nize such men as sound Churchmen. It is not long 
ago that I found a distinguished foreigner, a Protestant, 
and a minister of the gospel, whose name is well known 
to the public, asserting his belief that the greater por- 
tion of our clergy were influenced by the doctrines of 
the Romish Church, and were more or less Tractarians 

* Gal. i, 7, 8. 



AND DISSENTERS. 285 



in their sentiments. I plainly told him that he was 
wrongly informed, and assured him of the fact, that 
there is scarcely an instance to be found of one truly 
enlightened and established clergyman of the Church 
of England who has not stood firm, and proved faith- 
ful to the principles of the word of Grod, amid the 
shaking and sifting of the unstable and inexperienced 
around him. 

M. M D'A— had received his information, 

I fear, from those who ought to have known better 
than to have brought so false an accusation against 
our church. He had come to the house were I was 
also at that time a guest, from the midst of the party 
to whom I allude. But he is not the only foreign 
clergyman who has been misled by the same sad mis- 
representations. Still, I rejoice to think that there 
are very many conscientious dissenters from our 
Church, who would nobly disdain to take advantage 
of the trials to which the national Establishment has 
been of late years exposed, by the false teaching and 
subsequent defection of some of her unsound members. 

" Do not suppose," said an excellent Dissenting 
minister to me ; " that we are all to be numbered 
among the political agitators of the day ; or that we 
approve the attacks that are made upon your church. 
But those who make the most noise always attract 
the most notice, and are often erroneously supposed 
to represent the opinions of the whole body." I cannot 
close this chapter without bearing my testimony to 
the lovely and Christian spirit which I have met with 
towards our own Church among many distinguished 
Dissenters. I can never forget the debt of gratitude 



286 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 

I owe to a venerable Dissenting minister with whom 
I became acquainted soon after my ordination. He 
was a man of extensive reading, and one of the finest 
Hebrew scholars of his day ; but he was what is far 
better, a man of enlarged mind, and loved all who 
loved the Lord Jesus Christ. He was free from sec- 
tarian bitterness, nay, so far was he from cherishing 
Phostile feelings towards the Established Church of his 
country, that I have often heard him speak in terms 
of high admiration of our beautiful Liturgy. The 
kindness and the respect with which he treated me, 
when I was a young and inexperienced curate, made 
a deep impression on my heart ; and during my inter- 
course with him, I began to regret the unjust and j 
illiberal prejudices I had before held against Dissenters. ! 
Some of the most valuable instruction I ever received 
on the important subject of the wide distinction be- ' 
tween the covenant of works, and that of grace, and 
the two dispensations of the law and the gospel, was ' 
from the conversation of that wise and good old man, 
and I must ever hold liis memory in grateful remem- 
brance. On our leaving the place, where we had lived 
together in harmony for several years, he took my 
hand, and the hand of my wife in each of his, and 
said, in a voice faltering with emotion, " The angel of 
His presence go with you, my dear young friends, 
and bless you wherever you go." 

It was afterwards my privilege, for such indeed I 
deem it, to be called to attend at the death-beds of 
two other godly and aged dissenting ministers ; one of 
them I constantly visited as his chosen friend to the 
last, and I was kneeling by his bed-side, the witness 



AND DISSENTERS. 287 

of his glorious faith and blessed hope, almost up to the 
hour when his gentle spirit passed away in perfect 
peace. 

The other v/as a man of a sterner cast of character, 
but not less distinguished for his faith and devoted- 
ness in the service of our blessed Lord. On one occa- 
sion, he turned to me, and to another young clergy- 
man who had come with me to visit him. '^ You two 
young ministers," he said, '' are faithful, I believe, to 
your calling ; and I rejoice to hear the good report that 
I do of you. But it often happens, that faithful and 
zealous ministers of your church, prepare the way for 
dissenters in a place. For depend upon it, young gen- 
tlemen, when you, and such as you are removed, the 
people who are fed by a true shepherd, will never put 
up with the scanty fare, which a hireling may set before 
them, if they should be succeeded by such. And if 
the sheep cannot have the gospel faithfully preached 
in the church, they will go after it to the dissenting 
chapel." 

I was with him not long before his death ; and, in 
a most solemn manner, he said : " I am as one about 
to put off' my harness ; my fight is fought ; my work 
is done. You, Sir, are but as one who has lately put 
on your haraess ; and you have perhaps a long and 
wearisome fight before you. May G-od make you a 
good soldier, and enable you to endure hardness, in 
the service of the Lord .Jesus Christ." 

I had also the privilege of the acquaintance of the 
saintly John Elias, a remarkable man, whose extraor- 
dinary influence among his countrymen, gained for 
him the name of the Apostle of North Wales. I have 



288 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 

seldom met with so much meekness of wisdom in any- 
one. I was struck by the high respect and esteem, 
which he expressed, when speaking of one of my 
kindest and most revered friends, then Bishop of 
Chester, and now the Primate of our Church. " I do 
not know him personally," he said, ''but I have long 
known, long observed him, and marked the spirit of 
holy wisdom and Christian love which he manifests on 
all occasions. AVill you offer to your Bishop," he 
added, " my Christian respects ; will you tell him 
that I ^ mind him on my knees." 

Another distinguished leader among the godly dis- 
senters once said to me : '' If all the Bishops were 
like your Bishop, I think you would find me creeping 
in at a corner of your church." 

But I may be told that this is a strange and unu- 
sual strain of writing in a clergyman of the Church 
of England. If it be so, I can only say, I grieve to 
hear it. I do not think it ought to be so, nor do I care 
to shun the reproach — if any should deem it such — 
of being the friend of any godly man, who, though not 
a member of the Church of England, is assuredly a 
member of the Church of Christ. I hope to meet such 
men in the Church Triumphant above, and though 
they may not wear the same uniform, nor serve in the 
same corps with myself in the Church Militant below, 
I cannot look upon them but as fellow-soldiers, while 
they fight beneath the same banner, and under the 
same great Captain of the Lord's hosts. I look upon 
them as mistaken on some points, which are certainly 

* He seemed to think in Welch, and to turn his expressions into 
English when he spoke. 



AND DISSENTERS. 289 



not essential to salvation, and regard their system as 
defective, when compared with our own ; this is their 
loss, but this is no reason why I should be wanting 
in Christian kindness and Christian courtesy to them. 

While I see them too often still more and more 
estranged by the treatment they sometimes meet with, 
I can only say, for my own part, that I have seen them 
won by gentleness and cordiality. I have seen my 
own congregations swelled by their members, and I 
could name, at this very time, many valued friends, 
whom I have been the honored means of winning over 
to our own church. They were at one time zealous 
dissenters. Some of them are now devoted clergymen 
in the Established Church, others are preparing for 
ordination. 

The last twenty years have been times of unusual 
trial to the true members of the Established Church. 
Before that period she appeared to be in a flourishing 
and vigorous state ; excellent and godly men abounded 
then, as they do now among the ministers ; and many 
amiable, but less advanced clergymen, chiefly young 
or inexperienced men, appeared to be won, by the holy 
consistency, of what is called the Evangelical party. 
There was a growing friendliness between the two 
parties, courtesy and winningness on the one side, and 
humility and respect on the other. The various bodies 
of dissenters seemed to have forgotten their feelings 
of hostility towards the Established Church : what- 
ever may be the faults of her system, they did not 
identify the errors and inconsistencies of too many of 
her members with that system, nor confound the godly 
with the ungodly ; they acknowledged that the errors 
13 



290 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, 

of the unsound churchman were to be charged, not on 
his Church, but on himself. 

The trials of our Church, however, have since been 
many. Some dissenters have taken advantage of out 
disunited state, and have made unfair attacks upon 
the Establishment ; attacks which can only prove in 
the end injurious to themselves, and which are, even 
now, destructive of their own peace of mind and per- 
sonal godliness. 

But our sorest trials have arisen among our own 
false brethren. The questions which have been lately 
agitated about the rubrics and the surplice, &c., were 
not worthy of the importance given to them ; but had 
points of discipline alone been involved, the lovers of 
scriptural truth, whether among the clergy or the 
laity, would probably have been regarded then with 
as much interest as they deserved. One thing indeed, 
is certain, that the endeavor to restore church order, 
commenced, not with the Tractarian, but with the 
Evangelical clergy. There was then^ and there still 
is, an earnest desire, on their part, that all things 
should '^be done decently and in order;" but had no 
such desires existed, they would have welcomed a 
healthy movement on such points, and even regarded 
a morbid and puerile reaction on subjects of discipline 
alone, as harmless and unimportant. 

Questions, however, of the gravest importance 
have arisen, in the bosom of our own Church, not on 
points of discipline, but involving doctrines of vital 
and saving truth, and filling the hearts of her sound 
and godly members with sorrow and shame. The 
great doctrine of Justification by Faith has been openly 



AND DISSENTERS. 291 



attacked. This important doctrine, the palladium of 
every true Church of Christ, has even been termed 
'' Nehushtan" by some sneering and bitter assailants 
of evangelical truth. And, v^ith regard to another 
vital question, namely. Regeneration as connected 
v\rith Baptism, language has been used, not only at 
variance with the Articles of our Church, but nearly 
word for word with the dogmas of the Council of 
Trent on the subject, in which the opus operatum has 
been attributed to the outward and visible form of the 
ordinance. No one who will be at the trouble of 
reading the decrees of the said Council, can fail of 
being struck with the resemblance of which I speak. 

Since I wrote the above, a valued friend has 
pointed out to me the following passage from the pen 
of Archbishop Sancroft. I had forgotten it, having 
read his life many years ago. I rejoice to bring for- 
ward such an extract from the writings of an Arch- 
bishop of our Church, and a nonjuror, confirming my 
own views on Dissent and Romanism, and distinctly 
opposed to the opinions and the practice of many in 
the present day, to whom we look in vain for the 
spirit and the practice of the good old Primate of those 
days. The passage occurs in his published Injunc- 
tions. He urges upon his clergy " that they walk in 
wisdom, towards those that are not of our communion ; 
and if there be in their parishes any such, that they 
neglect not frequently to confer with them in the 
spirit of meekness, seeking by all good ways and 
means to gain and win them over to our communion. 
More especially that they have a very tender regard 
to our brethren the Protestant Dissenters ; that upon 



292 THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, ETC. 

occasion offered, they visit them at their houses and 
receive them kindly at their own, discoursing calmly 
and civilly with them; persuading them (if it may 
be) to a full compliance with our Church, or at least 
that ' whereto we have already attained, we may all 
walk by the same rule and mind the same thing.' 
And in order hereunto, that they take all opportunities 
of assuring and convincing them, that the bishops of 
the Church are really and sincerely irreconcileable 
enemies to the errors, superstitions, idolatries, and 
tyrannies of the Church of Rome, and that the very 
unkind jealousies which some have had of us to the 
contrary, were altogether groundless. And in the last 
place that they w^armly and most affectionately exhort 
them to join us in daily fervent prayer to the Grod of 
peace, for the universal blessed union of all reformed 
churches, both at home and abroad, against our 
common enemies ; that all they who do confess the 
holy name of our dear Lord, and do agree in the 
truth of his holy word, may also meet in one holy 
communion, and live in perfect unity and godly 
love."* 

It is a source of inexpressible gratitude before 
Almighty G-od, to the great body of the Protestant 
Church in these realms, that, in our present Primate, 
we have one of a like spirit with Archbishop Bancroft* 

» lyOyl/s Life of Sancroft, p. 196. 



CHAPTER XYIII. 

ROMANISM AND THE WORD OF GOD. 

It is with sorrow of heart that those who really value 
the truth, have observed of late years the increasing 
influence of the Church of Rome in this country. It 
is just that her members should enjoy that civil liber- 
ty which is the right of every British subject : but it 
is a false and fatal liberality to encourage error of any 
kind. It is also a fallacy to say that Rome has lost 
its persecuting spirit ; for according to its own avowed 
tenet, its system changes not. Deprived of power, it 
cannot persecute ; but give it power, and the spirit of 
persecution appears immediately. Such has always 
been the case, and up to the present hour, the Romish 
Church has manifested the same spirit. This has been 
seen in Maderia and Ireland. But supposing it to be 
agreed that the times of Romish persecution have 
passed away for ever, the simple fact that the system 
itself is a mass of unscriptural error, is one that can- 
not be denied by those who know the value of the pure 
word of truth, as contained in the Bible, and in the 
Bible alone. This is the great argument against 
Rome ; and he who knows anything of the unspeak- 
able value of Divine truth, should not consent to take 
any lower ground. 

The Bible and the Church of Rome cannot stand 



294 ROMANISM 



together, for truth and error can hold no fello\yship 
the one with the other. Truth, however, is imperish- 
able ; and, therefore, though error may prevail for a 
time, it must be finally overthrown. 

I frankly confess, that many years ago, I held the 
too common opinion, that there was little or no impor- 
tant difference between our own Church and that of 
Rome ; and the opinions which I heard occasionally 
from the lips of some sound members of the Church 
of England, expressive of their thorough disapproba- 
tion of the Romish heresy, appeared to me alike un- 
just and uncharitable. The truth is, that I was igno- 
rant ; and owing to my ignorance, I was incapable of 
forming a correct opinion on the subject. I thank 
God I am not imorant now. But the more I know 
of the Romish relioion, the more am I convinced that 
nothing short of a clear and vital knowledge of the 
word of God, can enable any one to refute or to with- 
stand the insidious devices of that Protean Church. 
I own I am sometimes amazed at the deplorable igno- 
rance manifested by men of intellect and education, 
on this subject. I cannot suppose that statesmen, 
honest on other points, would debase themselves to 
adopt an unprincipled expediency on this one import- 
ant question ; and, therefore, I can only attribute the 
arguments which they put forth, to their own igno- 
rance of scriptural truth. 

But, alas, not only among our statesmen, but 
amonsr the clersfv and laitv of this hi2:hly favored 
country, we too often find that a bold and uncom- 
promising protest against Romanism, is looked upon 
as equally ill-judged and uncharitable. And yet it is 



AND THE WORD OF GOD. 295 

not to be wondered at, when we think of the mystery 
of iniquity, and the deceivableness of unrighteousness, 
which is interwoven so alluringly throughout the 
whole system of the Church of Rome, making itself 
all things to all men, in order that it may ensnare all. 
Let however, a determined and searching spirit set 
himself vigorously to the work of piercing through the 
various blinds which present themselves to the un- 
wary and unsuspicious, the subterfuges, at once so 
plausible and so dangerous, with which she accom- 
modates herself to every possible difficulty the doubting 
inquirer may encounter ; and he will find that Rome 
is what she always was, stern in her real features, 
inflexible in her true character, yielding nothing, 
abating nothing, conceding nothing, grasping at uni- 
versal dominion ; unscrupalous as she is unpitying in 
the means she uses to secure her ends ; and allowing 
no appeal from the dictum of the Churchy that title 
which she arrogantly appropriates to herself alone. 

A clergyman of the Established Protestant Church 
in Ireland, a young man of distinguished talent and 
high character, who was formerly a Romanist, assured 
me that for some years before he openly avowed him- 
self a Protestant, he was secretly convinced that the 
Church of Rome was not the true Church of Christ ; 
and that it was his duty to leave her community. 
^^ But," he added, " it has often happened, that when 
I had almost made up my mind to come out of her, 
and to obey the dictates of my conscience, the curses 
which I have heard uttered by the priests from the 
altar, against all Protestants, were so awful, and 
their effect upon mc so appalling, that on quitting 



296 ROMANISM 



the chapel, I have shuddered to think on the danger I 
had escaped by not having declared myself a Protes- 
tant." I have thanked God as if I had been saved from 
hell. Such, alas, is the fascination of that mysterious 
terror, the spell of that powerful enthralment which 
the Church of Rome exercises over her members, to 
keep them in subjection to her sway. In the case of 
this young clergyman, the conviction of truth in his 
own conscience, proved still more powerful than 
the mysterious influence of that apostate Church; 
before many years had passed away, he stood forth a 
bold and faithful witness for the truth ; and has since 
proved a powerful and consistent preacher of the gospel 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

I have the privilege of being acquainted with seve- 
ral individuals, in various grades of society, who have, 
in like manner, by the grace of God emancipated them- 
selves from the bondage of the Church of Rome. I 
could bring the account of many before my readers, 
some of which occurred under my own observation. 
At present, however, I select but the following simple, 
and touching instance of the power of the word of 
G-od, working almost without the aid of human instru- 
mentality. 

A poor widew, belonging to my own congregation, 
came to me one Sunday afternoon, at the conclusion 
of the evening service, entreating me to go with her 
immediately to one of her neighbors, who was almost 
inconsolable, one of her children having been fright- 
fully burnt. No hopes were entertained of its recovery. 
The poor mother was a young woman, by profession a 
Roman Catholic, but the father was a Protestant 



AND THE WORD OF GOD. 297 

This I learned on my way to the house ; I found the 
account of the child's state but too true, and the mo- 
ther's grief was very affecting. The child died. I 
endeavored, on that occasion, and on ray subsequent 
visits, when attempting to console the disconsolate 
woman, to point out to her the only source of solid 
comfort, praying with her and her husband that our 
gracious God, without whom not a sparrow falleth to 
the ground, might enable her to say, " Thy will be 
done :" and to perceive the love of Grod in that severe 
and mysterious chastening. In the few interviews 
which I had with her, I was struck by the ignorance 
of the afflicted woman, an ignorance which seemed to 
me almost inconceivable in one bearing the name of 
a Christian. Nothing that I could say, with reference 
to the word of God, seemed to possess the least inte- 
rest with her. She gave me, however, to understand 
that she was a Roman Catholic, and though she seemed 
thankful and pleased with the sympathy which I ex- 
pressed for her grief, and the relief which I gave her, 
she quietly but sullenly repulsed all questions of a re- 
ligious character. I think it was on the last visit 
which I paid her, that I put into her hands a New 
Testament, and earnestly entreated her to read it with 
prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit. But I said 
nothing about her particular creed. I felt that the 
great object to be gained was, to lead her to the know- 
ledge of Grod in Christ, as He has revealed Himself in 
the one book which Ho has given us. 

" The entrance of thy word," saith the Psalmist, 
"giveth light ; it giveth understanding to the simple."^** 

* Psalm cxix. 130. 

13* 



298 ROMANISM 



I left the book of life with her, praying that she might 
be induced to open it, and to search it, and that the 
entrance of its words into her heart might bring with 
them light and understanding. 

She soon after left that part of the town, and I lost 
sight of her altogether. 

Three years had passed away, when a pious friend, 
who was a constant visitor among the poor, told me, 
at the conclusion of my evening lecture, that a poor 

sick woman, named AY , was anxiously longing 

to see me ; and that she had been hoping that I should 
find her out, as I had been kind to her some years be- 
fore. Till then I had been quite ignorant of the place 
of her residence, nor had I thought it likely, humanly 
speaking, that she would care to see me again. In- 
deed, when my friend first spoke of her, I had but a 
faint recollection of the person, the "Welsh names 

being common in C . But when she mentioned 

that her child had been burned to death, and that 
the woman was a Ptomanist, I not only identified the 
person, but felt my interest awakened about her. I had, 
however, no conception of the marvellous change which 
I was about to witness in that poor sick woman. I 
found her sadly altered in personal appearance ; worn 
and wasted by intense bodily suffering ; her large grey 
eyes dilated, and the blue veins in her pale forehead 
distinctly marked, owing to the attenuation of her 
whole face and frame. She received me with delight, 
though her first words were exclamations of reproach 
because I had not come sooner to see her. But the 
extraordinary change to vrhich I allude was not as to 
the bodily health of the poor sufferer. She had become 



AND THE WORD OF GOD. 299 

in heart and spirit a new creature. The deadness as 
to spiritual things, which had before amounted almost 
to obtuseness of intellect, was gone ; and the vigor of 
thought, and the clearness of conception with which 
she spoke of her own state before G-od, and of the pre- 
ciousness of His blessed word to her soul, filled me 
with amazement. I sat and listened to her quietly ; I 
asked no questions, while she continued to talk in a 
strain of heaven-taught wisdom, which showed, that 
on every point connected with her immortal hopes, she 
had passed from darkness to light, and from the bond- 
age of Satan into the glorious liberty of the children 
of G-od. I learnt that a friend of mine, who had been 
for a short time resident in Chester, and while there, 
a member of my congregation, had found her out in 
one of his visits among the poor ; and touched by her 
suffering, had visited her frequently. He had read to 
her, and prayed with her ; but she confessed to me, 
that at first she had much disliked his visits, and felt 
greatly annoyed whenever the door opened and he ap- 
peared. She had been long before that time under 
deep and secret convictions, but she had been alarmed 
by them to a degree scarcely credible; she had been 
terrified at the idea of yielding to them ; he had been 
made the honored instrument, almost against her will, 
of forcing and fixing her attention to the word of God, 
and to the divine doctrines which had come with light, 
though not with liberty, into her heart. He had pro- 
bably never been aware of the extreme dislike which 
she had at first felt to his visits. She would afivr- 
wards have rejoiced to see him, but he had left Ches- 
ter. The words of the Psalmist however, had been 



300 ROMANISM 



literally fulfilled in her case. The entrance of the 
word of Grod had given light and understanding. 
^' That New Testement, Sir," she said, " which you 
gave me three years ago, I cannot tell you how I prize 
it : it is every thing to me ! I often felt, after you had 
left it, as if I could not help taking it out, and reading 
it ; but after I had read a few verses, I used to shut it 
almost with horror, and feel as if I had committed a 
crime ; and then I thought I would never look at it 
again. But, again I opened it, again I read, and again 
I closed it with the same feeling of having done wrong." 
''But why was this ?" I asked. I was well aware of 
what she had to tell me ; but I waited to hear the 
reason of that terror of which she spoke, from her own 
lips. '' It was the word of G-od, was it not," I asked ? 
'' Yes, Sir," she replied ; " but I could not help feeling 
afraid after having looked into it." '' But why afraid ?" 
I repeated. " Oh, Sir, you must know," she said, 
with a look of astonishment at my ignorance on such 
a point, " you must know that our priests do not allow 
us to read the Bible. ""^ I am only recording a fact. 

* Xot many weeks have passed, since a Romish Priest at Birming- 
ham took away a JN'ew Testament from a little girl who attended the 
Free Industrial School -in that town, and burnt the sacred volume, 
declaring at the same time, that he would burn every Bible or Tract 
^hich he found in the houses of any of his people. He also took upon 
liimself to forbid the Clergjrman of the parish or district, to enter the 
3iouse of any Romanist there. 

A plain statement of the whole affair may be found in a valuable 
^sermon, preached on the occasion, in St. Martin's Church, Birmingliam, 
T^y the Rev. C. Miller, Rector of St. Martin's. The sermon, from its 
low price of threepence, is within the reach of all readers, and is 
-well worth reading. It is published by Hamilton and Adams, and 
Wertheim. 



AND THE AVORD OF GOD. 301 

I say this, because on a former occasion, when relating 
another fact which illustrated the real character of the 
Romish heresy, at a public meeting in Chester, I was 
afterwards violently and bitterly attacked from several 
quarters, for my want of charity ; and even accused 
of manifesting a " Satanic spirit." T perfectly recol- 
lect those circumstances also, and they will probably 
find a place in a future volume. These are not times 
when lovers of scriptural truth should hold their 
peace, or withhold their testimony. Truth and a clear 
conscience should make them bold in exposing the 
wily practices of that false and fallen church, which is 
leaving no means untried to regain its long-lost power 
in this most favored country. On every side we see 
that efforts are making to revive the senseless and de- 
grading superstitions of the darker ages ; and in fact, 
wherever Rome obtains ascendancy, the superstitions 
of the darker ages reappear. The human heart, un- 
fortified by the principles of divine truth, has given 
proof enough, in these enlightened times, as they are 
termed, of inability to withstand the absurd, but en- 
snaring sophistries of the most cunningly-devised sys- 
tem which was ever framed by the great adversary. 

I was not surprised by the statement of the sick 
woman, that the Bible was a forbidden book ; but I 
had no wish to pursue the subject with her, nor did I, 
in any of my interviews, question her as to the prac- 
tices of the Romish priests. She told me afterwards 
that she had been vexed with her husband, who avow- 
ed himself to be a Protestant, for sending without her 
knowledge, to ask the priest to visit her. Whether he 
came or not, I do not remember ; my impression is 



302 ROMANISM 



that he did come, and that she told him she had found 
all that she needed in the word of God. I have no 
reason to suppose that he said, or would have said, a 
harsli or an unkind word to her, or that she would 
have spoken in an improper spirit to him. She had 
not so learned Christ. But the remarkable firmness 
of her renewed character, and the clear and collected 
state of her mind, vrould have proved to him, that any 
attempt to shake her faith, or to change her decision, 
was beyond the power of man» 

Some of the members of the Roman Catholic con- 
gregation came once or twice to visit her, and the ser- 
vant of a kind-hearted lady brought her some relief 
in food and money — but she said to me, when speak- 
ing on the subject, " I begged the servant to thank 
the lady, and to say, that I did not wish to trouble 
them for any thing. I thought it better. Sir, not to 
have any of them about me.'' 

"When I had visited her some years before, her hus- 
band was in full employment, and though an elderly 
man, able to obtain sufficient for a comfortable sub- 
sistence. But they were now reduced almost to pov- 
erty, and he was often absent in Wales for weeks at 
a time. I found on questioning her eldest boy, a re- 
markably intelligent child, that she was sometimes in 
want even of food ; and I told the boy, whenever he 
saw this to be the case, to come to me without telling 
his mother, that I might send her the assistance she 
needed. He took me at my word, saying in his art- 
less manner, '* Sir, if you please, you told me to come, 
for my mother has nothing to eat ; and you said you 
would send her whatever she wanted," She vras 



AND THE WORD OF GOD. 303 

much distressed when she found that the little fellow 
had been to me, and assured me that she had not 
known of his coming. She was indeed remarkably 
disinterested, notwithstanding her poverty ; she utter- 
ed no complaints, and never asked for relief. She 
seemed only to care for spiritual aid, and never seem- 
ed distressed except when my visits were interrupted. 
I have seldom witnessed more grievous suffering. I 
never found her free from torturing pains : but even 
when her whole frame was drawn together with con- 
vulsive pangs, and writhing with agony, she would 
continue to speak with the same energy and delight 
of that precious book, and the unsearchable treasures 
with which it had enriched her soul. She was never 
tired of the subject, never tired of conversing with me 
on the various portions of Scripture which I had brought 
before her, or which she had read for herself. I usual- 
ly found the New Testament open either in her hands, 
or, when her paroxysms of pain were most violent, 
lying on a chair or table near her. The word of God 
seemed to be more than her necessary food to her ; she 
literally hungered and thirsted for it. 

She was constantly visited by a medical man, but 
she seemed to obtain no relief. Indeed,'' Irfer disease 
appeared to baffle every effort of skill, even the nature 
or cause of it was for some time unknown. I took a 
personal friend of my own, a young surgeon, of whom 
I had justly formed a high opinion, to visit her, and 
left him with her. A few days afterwards, when I 
saw him again, he told me that he was scarcely able 
to give an opinion on the case. *'Are you quite sure," 
he added, ''that she is not pretending to suffer more 



304 ROMANISM 



than she really does. She is certainly in a weak and 
delicate state ; but I am sadly afraid that she is de- 
ceiving us, and there is not much the matter with 
her." I could not believe this, and so I told him ; for 
I felt convinced in my own mind that no one but a 
consummate hypocrite, and such I felt assured she was 
not, could have counterfeited the agonies I had wit- 
nessed. But others also had the same suspicion con- 
cerning her ; and though I could not alter my own 
opinion, I was deeply grieved to hear their remarks, 
or to admit the possibility of such gross deception in 
one of whom I thought so highly. Soon after this she 
begged me to give her a ticket of admission into the 
Infirmary. She had waited, she told me, till her hus- 
band returned from "Wales, to ask this, as she could 
not leave her children alone in the house. My appli- 
cation on her behalf was gladly attended to, and she 
was admitted. I soon after visited her there, and she 
expressed in warm terms her gratitude for the kind- 
ness and the care she met with. She was much worse, 
and suffering still greater agonies, but uniformly 
cheerful ; looking simply to Jesus Christ, and full of 
hope and faith in Him as her only Redeemer, and 
only Mediator. The reality of her sufferings was no 
longer doubted by the medical men who attended her ; 
and the same young friend to whom I have already 
referred, afterwards told me, how truly he deplored his 
former suspicions. The complaint proved, I believe, 
to be an abscess in the socket of the hip-joint, and 
for some time no outward appearance, nor any descrip- 
tion that she gave, could enable them to discover the 
seat of the disease ; but he told me that her sufferings 



AND THE OF WORD GOD. 305 

must have been almost past description ; and that her 
patience and fortitude had been truly extraordinary. 
In her case there was no recovery. But the more the 
outward frame decayed, the more the inward spirit was 
renewed with heavenly life and strength. She died 
before I was again enabled to see her. I was absent 
for a time ; and on my return, I learned that she had 
entered into her rest. 

Grloriously had the words of the Psalmist been ful- 
filled in her, " The entrance of thy word giveth light." 
He who is the light of the world had brought her forth 
from the darkness in which he found her ; and under 
the effectual teaching of the Holy Spirit whom He 
had given her, she had learnt from His word to know 
and to love Him as her only Saviour. She had learnt 
to trust Him with her whole heart ; and had been thus 
enabled to realize in its fulness. His own wondrous 
promise,^ ''He that followeth me shall not walk in 
darkness, but shall have the light of life." 

Here I close for the present the record of some of 
the facts connected with my ministerial course. There 
are many subjects yet untouched, which I had intended 
to introduce in these pages, but I have already ex- 
ceeded the limits which I had proposed to myself. 
They must be reserved, therefore, for another volume. 
I may here mention, that the book was written at the 
suggestion and request of a friend. He begged me 
to publish some of the incidents, which had come un- 
der my notice from the time of my entering upon the 

* John viii. 12. 



306 ROMANISM 



work of the ministry. He will see that his request 
has not been forgotten. 

I think it as well to state here, as well as by the 
title of this volume, that the circumstances which I 
have narrated are all facts ; there is no fiction in the 
book. So far from embellishing them, I have left out 
many details which might have added to the interest 
of my narratives ; but I felt that such pruning was 
necessary. I fully subscribe to the truth of the maxim, 
that '' Le vrai n'est pas toujours le vraisemblable." 

I trust that my experience may prove not only in- 
teresting, but useful, to some of my younger brethren 
in the Christian Ministry. Those especially, who may 
suppose that their vocation does not supply them with 
employment, may learn that so far from being an idle 
calling, it supplies Vv^ork for the whole life, and it de- 
mands the devotedness of the whole man. A clergy- 
man need never turn to secular pursuits for occupation, 
or to worldly circles for recreation. His own profession 
will provide both to him ; and he may, if he will, find 
an absorbing interest in that, and in that alone. If 
such is not the case, he can never be either a useful or 
a happy man in the ministry. A clergyman's calling 
has, however, this disadvantage, necessarily attending 
it, that while in no other profession idleness is toler- 
ated, or can obtain bread to support itself, a clergyman 
may, if he please, be an idler, or a trifler, doing the 
least possible work as a mere hireling ; but how tre- 
mendous, notwithstanding, is the responsibility of his 
office ! how awful the account he will have to render 
at the great day ! 

It was with no little pain that I heard the reply 



AND THE WORD OF GOD. 307 

of a young clergyman when asked, on coming to take 
the charge of immortal souls in a curacy, Whether he 
found the place dull ? " No," he said, '' I am fond of 
music, and I have my flute ; and, what with that, and 
my daily walk, I get through the day pretty well ; 
besides, I dine out very often." I afterwards heard, 
that he was often at parties four days out of the six. 
Ah, what a contrast does the life of such an amiable 
trifler present to that of him, who comes home every 
evening pale and exhausted from the arduous labors 
of the day, yet rejoicing to spend and be spent in the 
holy and happy service of his blessed Master ! I shall 
never forget how deeply and keenly I felt the observa- 
tion, made to me by a godly man in the humbler ranks 
of life many years ago. ''It is an awful thing, Sir, 
for an unconverted man to take upon himself to preach 
the gospel to immortal souls !" I have often heard the 
remark since ; there is nothing new in it ; but it was 
then new to me. Could I do otherwise than ask my- 
self this searching question — '' Am I a converted 
man ; for I too have taken upon myself the commis- 
sion of preaching the gospel to immortal souls ?" 

"We must, if we preach Christ crucified, be either 
'' the savor of death unto death, or the savor of life 
unto life," to our hearers ; is it not possible that we 
may be '' the savor of death unto death," not only to 
others, but to ourselves ? 



THE END. 



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